HISTORY 

OF 

RATIONALISM 

EMBRACING 

A SURVEY OF THE PRESENT STATE OF 
PROTESTANT THEOLOGY 

By JOHN FLETCHER HURST, D.D., LL.D. 

M 

WITH APPENDIX OF LITERATURE 

IRcvisc^, \90\ 



New York : Eaton & Mains 
Cincinnati : Jennings & Pve 

i 



The I isARY OF 

OC^'ORESS, 
Two OonES Received 

OEC. t? 1901 

COP^RIQMT ENTHr 

CLASS ci^XXc. NO. 

/ s- L f-^ 
COPT? a. 



Copyright, 1865, by Charles Scribner & Co. 
Copyright, 1893, by John F. Hurst, 
Copyright, 1901, by Eaton & Mains. 



The Rationalists are like the spiders, they spin all out of their own 
bowels. But give me a philosopher who, like the bee, hath a middle 
faculty, gathering from abroad, but digesting that which is gathered 
by its own virtue. — Lobd Bacon. 



The Bible, I say the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants. . . . 
There is no safe certaintie but of Scripture only, for any considering 
man to build upon. This therefore, and this only I have reason to 
beleeve; this I will prof esse; according to this I will live, and for this 
I will not only willingly, but even gladly lose my life, though I should 
be sorry that Christians should take it from me. Propose me any- 
thing out of this book, and require whether I believe it or no, and 
secure it never so incomprehensible to humane reason, I will sub- 
scribe it hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be 
stronger than this, God hath said so, therefore it is true. In other 
things I will take no man's libertie of judgment from him; neither 
shall any man take mine from me. I will think no man the worse 
man nor .the worse Christian. I will love no man the lesse for differing 
in opinion with me. And what measure I mete to others I expect from 
them againe. I am fully assured that God does not, and therefore 
that men ought not to require any more of any man, than this: to 
believe the Scripture to be God's word, to endeavor to finde the true 
sense of it, and to live according to it. — Chillingworth. 



Are those enthusiasts who profess to follow reason? Yes, undoubt- 
edly, if by reason they mean only conceits. Therefore such persons 
are now commonly called Reasonists or Rationalists to distinguish 
them from true reasoners or rational inquirers. — Wateblaijd. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



TO THE REVISED EDITION. 



The present revision of the History of Rationalism 
has been made during the past eighteen months. The 
salient points in the liberalistic theology of the last 
thirty-six years have been carefully studied and their 
bearings upon the recent religious life and thought of 
both Europe and America have been noted. Happily, 
the vital body of evangelical truth has received only 
comparatively weak and timorous attacks from the 
more modern representatives of the rank and rabid 
rationalism which reached its climax near the close of 
the eighteenth, and has had a continuous decline 
through the nineteenth century. This waning of the 
rationalistic spirit of the former period has rendered 
the task easier than it would have been if the viru- 
lence of the earlier type had continued in full force. 

In the treatment of topics the book has, by a careful 
process of elimination and substitution, been kept sub- 
stantially of the same size as its predecessor. The 
bibliography, however, has been materially enlarged by 
the addition of a choice selection from the rich accumu- 
lation of the last four decades, the increase being about 
one half in the number of book titles relating to the 
latest theological discussions. 

Washington, D. C, October 31, 1901. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Page 

•Systematic History of Infidelity 2, 3 

Best Method of refuting Rationalism 3, 4 

Rationalism not an unmixed Evil 4-6 

Definitions of Rationalism: 

Wegscheider 8 

Stiiudlin 11 

Habn 12 

Rose 13 

Bretschneider 14 

McCaul 16 

Saintes 19 

Lecky 22 

Classes of Rationalists 24-26 

Causes of the Success of Rationalism 26-32 

Four Considerations in Reference to Rationalism 32-35 

CHAPTER I. 

CONTROVERSIAL PERIOD SUCCEEDING THE REFORMATION. 

Causes of the Controversial Spirit . 3S 

The Controversies described 39,40 

George Calixtus 40-45 

Jacob Boehme 46-49 

John Arndt 49-51 

John Gerhard 51-53 

John Valentine Andrea 53-55 

CHAPTER II. 

RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCH AT THE PEACE OF 

WESTPHALIA. 

Description of the Thirty Years' War 56-59 

Religious Decline of the Church 59-61 



X 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Neglect of Children 62-65 

Defects of Theological Literature 66-68 

Low State of Theological Instruction 68, 6d 

Imperfect Preaching of the Time 69-73 

Immorality of the Clergy and Theological Professors 73-77 

Religious Indifference of the Upper Classes 77-80 

CHAPTER III. 

PIETISM AND ITS MISSION. 

Philosophy of the Period 82 

Improvement dependent on Individuals 84,85 

What Pietism proposed to do. 85-88 

Principles of Pietism 88, 8» 

Philip Jacob Spener, the Founder of Pietism 89-93 

University of Halle 93 

Augustus Hermann Francke 93-95 

The Orphan House at Halle 95-97 

Influence of the University of Halle 97, 98 

Arnold and Thomasius 98,99 

New Generation of Professors in Halle 99, 100 

Cause of the Decline of Pietism 102 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY OF WOLFF. — SKEPTICAL TENDENCIES FEOM: 

ABROAD. 

Leibnitz, Founder of the Wolffian Philosophy 103, 104; 

Wolff and the Popular Philosophy 104-111 

The School of Wolff Ill 

Tollner 112 

English Deism in Germany 113-117 

English Deism in France 117,118 

Voltaire and Frederic the Great 119-123 

Frederic's Regret at Skepticism in Prussia 123, 124 

CHAPTER V. 

SEMLER AND THE DESTRUCTIVE SCHOOL. — 1750-1810. 

Influence of Foreign Skepticism on the German Church 125, 126 

Semler and the Accommodation-Theory 126-131 

Semler's Private Life 135-137 



CONTENTS. xi 

Page 

Influence of Semler's destructive Criticism 137, 138 

Edelmann 138,139 

Bahrdt, — his Writings, and depraved Character 139-143 

CHAPTER VI. 

CONTRIBUTIONS OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 

Prevalence of Semler's Opinions 144,145 

Mental Activity of the Times 145 

Adherents to the Accommodation-Theory 147,148 

Literary Agencies: 

Nicolai's Universal German Library 147, 148 

Rationalistic Spirit in Berlin 148 

Wolfenbiittel Fragments 149-156 

Philosophical Agencies: 

Kant and his System 156-162 

Service rendered by Kant 162 

Jacobi 162, 163 

Fichte 163 

Schelling 164 

Hegel 164,165 

Grouping of the Philosophical Schools 165-167 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE REIGN OF THE WEIMAR CIRCLE. — REVOLUTION IN EDUCATION AND 

HYMNOLOGY. 

Harmony of the prevalent philosophical Systems 169 

Karl August of Weimar and his literary Circle 169-171 

John Gottfried Herder 171-179 

Schiller 179-182 

Goethe 182, 183 

Deleterious Change in Education 184 

Basedow and his Philanthropium 184-187 

Campe and Salzmann 187,188 

Rationalistic Elementary Books 189-193 

Alteration of the German Hymns 194, 195 

Decline of Church Music 195 

Inability of Orthodox Theologians to resist Rationalism 195, 196 

CHAPTER VII L 

DOCTRINES OF RATIONALISM IN THE DAY OF ITS STRENGTH. 

Desolate Condition of the Church 197, 198 

Rationalism without a Common System 198, 199 



XII CONTENTS. 

Opinions of Rationalists: page 

Religion 19^ 

Existence of God 199, 200 

Doctrine of Inspiration 200-202 

Credibility of the Scriptures 203-206 

Fall of Man 206,207 

Miracles 207-211 

Prophecy 211-214 

Person of Christ 214-218 



CHAPTER IX. 

RENOVATION INAUGURATED BY SCHLEIERMACHER. 

Protestant Germany at the Commencement of the Nineteenth 
Century 

Fichte and his Popular Appeal 

Schleiermacher 

The Romantic School 

Ecclesiastical Reconstruction inaugurated by Frederic Wil- 
liam III 

The Union of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches 

Claus Harms — his 95 Theses 

CHAPTER X. 



RELATIONS OF RATIONALISM AND SUPERNATURALISM. — 1810-1835. 

The Task before the New Church 237 

Rationalism strengthened by Rohr and Wegscheider 238 

The terms, Rationalism and Supernaturalism 239 

Tittmann 239, 240 

Tzschirner 240 

Schott , 241 

Schleiermacher's System of Doctrines 241-244 

Effect of Schleiermacher's Teaching 245, 246 

De Wette 246-249 

Neander 249-253 

His personal Appearance 253, 254 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE REACTION PRODUCED BY STRAUSS' LIFE OF JESUS. 1835-1848. 

Hypercriticism of the Rationalists 255,256 

Influence of Schleiermacher and Hegel 256, 257 

The threefold Division of the Hegelian School 257, 258 

David Frederic Strauss and his Life of Jesus 258-269 



220-222 
222-224 
224-229 
230 

230, 231 

231, 232 
232-236 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

Heplies to the Life of Jesus: p^^e 

Harless 271 

Hoffman 271 

Neander 272 

Ullmann 273 

Schweizer 273 

Wilke 273 

Schaller 273 

Dorner 273, 274 

liiterature occasioned by Strauss' Life of Jesus 274, 275 

Strauss' New Life of Jesus for the People 275-278 

^he Tubingen School, conducted by Ferdinand Christian Baur 278-280 

The Influence of the French Revolution 280, 281 

Strauss' System of Doctrine 281, 282 

Feuerbach 282 

The Halle Year-Books 282,283 

The "Friends of Light" 283, 284 

The "Free Congregations" 284,285 

Rationalistic Leaders of the Revolution of 1848 285, 286 

Their Failure, and its Cause „ 286, 287 

CHAPTER XIL 

THE EVANGELICAL SCHOOL! ITS OPINIONS AND PBESENT PBOSPECTS. 

The Mediation Theologians, or Evangelical School, grouped: 

Ullmann 288,289 

Dorner 289-292 

Tholuck 292-295 

Lange 295, 29G 

Twesten 297 

Nitzsch 297-299 

Rothe 299-303 

Schenkel — his Adoption of Rationalism 303-305 

Hengstenberg 305-307 

Theological Journals 307 

Improved Theological Instruction 307-309 

Oerman Protestant Charities 310 

CHAPTER XII L 

LATEB THEOLOGICAL MOVEMENTS IN GEEMANY. 

Christlieb and Dorner 311-315 

Tatke, Graf, Wellhausen, Delitzsch, and Ewald 315-317 

Weiss, Luthardt, Zahn, Keim, Hilgenfeld, Rauss, and Keil. . 317-320 



xiv 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Strauss' later Career 320,321 

Virchow, Lotze, Hartmann, and Haeckel 323,324 

Pfleiderer 325,326 

Ritschl 326-328 

Harnack 328-331 

CHAPTER XIV. 

HOLLAND: THEOLOGY AND RELIGION FROM THE SYNOD OF DORT TO THE 

COAIMENCEMENT OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Former Political Influence of Holland 332,333 

Rise of Rationalism in Holland 333 

Influence of the Synod of Dort 334 

Corruption of Ethics 335 

Low state of Homiletic Literature 335,336 

Cocceius 336-339 

Voetius 339,340 

Controversy between the Cocceians and Voetians 340-343 

Favorable Influence of the Huguenot Immigrants 343, 344 

Popular Acquaintance with Theology 345, 346 

Bekker 347,348 

Roell 348,349 

Van Os 349 

Influence of English Deism 350-353 

Influence of French Skepticism 353,354 

Napoleon Bonaparte's domination 354,355 

CHAPTER XV. 

HOLLAND continued: THE NEW THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS, AND THE GREAT 
CONTROVERSY BETWEEN ORTHODOXY AND RATIONALISM. 

The Political Subjugation of Holland 356 

Inactivity of Orthodoxy 356,357 

Rupture produced by the New Hymn-Book 357, 358 

The Revival and the Secession: 

Bilderdyk, Da Costa, Capadose, Groen Van Prins- 

terer 359-361 

De Cock, the Leader of the Secession 362, 363 

Failure of the Secession 363,364 

The Groningen School 364 

Its Characteristic 364 

Hofstede de Groot and Pareau. 365, 366 

Doctrines of the Groningens 366, 367 



CONTENTS. XV 

Page 

The School of Ley den 367 

Scholten 368-371 

The School of Empirical-Modern Theology: 

Opzoomer 371 

Pierson 371-374 

Doctrines of this School 374,376 

The Ethical Irenical School 375 

Chantepie de la Saussaye and Van Oosterzee 375-382 

Later Movements 382-385 

Kuyper 383 

Kuenen and others 383,384 

Present conditions 385 

CHAPTER XVI. 

TBANCE: EATIONALISM in the protest ant church THE CRITICAL 

SCHOOL. 

Recent Activity of Religious Thought in France 386,387 

Coldness of Orthodoxy at the Commencement of the Nine- 
teenth Century 387, 388 

Influence of Wesleyan Missionaries 388,389 

Cartesianism and the Positive Philosophy 390 

Light French Literature 391 

The Critical School of Theology 391-394 

Reville 394-396 

Scherer 396-400 

Larroque 400 

Rougemont 400, 401 

Colani 401,402 

Pecaut 402, 403 

Grotz 403 

Renan and his Life of Jesus 403-406 

A. Coquerel, jr 406-400 

Influence of French Skepticism upon the Young 409, 410 

CHAPTER XVI L 

FRANCE continued: EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY OPPOSING EATIONALISM. 

Agencies Opposing Rationalism 411 

De Pressense 411-418 

Guizot 416-419 

Success of the Evangelical School 419-421 

National Synod of 1872 422 

Later conditions 423,424 



xvi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
switzebland: orthodoxy in geneva, and the new speculative 



RATIONALISM IN ZURICH. 

Page 

Prostration of the Swiss Church at the Commencement of 

the Nineteenth Century 425,426 

Neglect of Theological Instruction 426,427 

The Theological Academy in Geneva 428 

The Evangelical Dissenting Church 428 

Gaussen 428,429 

Vinet 429 

Recent Religious Conditions of Geneva 429,430 

Lectures in the Genevan Theological Academy 431,432 

Religious Declension of Ziirich 432 

Ziirich the Centre of Swiss Rationalism 433-435 

The Speculative Rationalism: 

The Holy Scriptures 435 

Christ 435-437 

Sin 438 

Faith 438,439 

Later conditions 439 

CHAPTER XIX. 

ENGLAND: THE SOIL PREPARED FOR THE INTRODUCTION OF RATIONALISM. 

English Deism and German Rationalism Contrasted 440 

Literature of England in the Eighteenth Century 440,441 

The Writers of that Period 441 

Influence of the French Spirit 441,442 

Bolingbroke 442, 443 

Hume 444-447 

Gibbon 447,448 

The moral Prostration of the Church 448-450 

Influence of the Wesleyan Movement 450-452 

CHAPTER XX. 

ENGLAND CONTINUED: PHH^OSOPHICAL AND LITERARY RATIONALISM. — ■ 
COLERIDGE AND CARLYLE. 

Compensations of History 453 

Rise of a Disposition in England to consult German The- 
ology and Philosophy 453,454 



CONTENTS. xvii 

Philosophical Rationalism: page 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 455-462 

Julius Charles Hare 462-465 

F. D. Maurice 465-468 

Charles Kingsley 468-471 

'liiterary Rationalism: 

Influence of Philosophy on Literature 472 

Thomas Carlyle 473-477 

The Westminster Review and Matthew Arnold 477,478 

vScientific Rationalism 478 

Darwin and Spencer 478-480 

CHAPTER XXI. 

ENGLAND CONTINUED: CRITICAL RATIONALISM — JOWETT, THE ESSAYS 
AND REVIEWS, AND COLENSO. 

Relation of the Bible to Christianity 481 

Critical Rationalism: 

Professor Jowett 481 

The "Essays and Reviews" 482-497 

Judicial Proceedings against the Writers of that 

Work 497-499 

Criticism of Bishop Colenso 499-503 

Judicial Proceedings against Colenso 503-505 

Some later Critics , 505,506 

CHAPTER XXII. 

ENGLAND CONTINUED: SURVEY OF CHURCH PARTIES. 

Unity of the Church of England 507 

The Evangelical and Sacramentalist Parties 507 

The Low Church: 

Cambridge University 508 

Activity of the Pounders of the Low Church 508, 509 

Missionary Zeal 509,510 

Parties in the Low Church 510 

The High Church: 

Rise of the Tractarian Movement 511,512 

Doctrines of the High Church 512-515 

Service rendered by the High Church 515 

John H. Newman 516,517 

Francis William Newman. 517-519 

2 



xviii 



CONTENTS. 



The First Broad Church: pagb 

Indefiniteness of Creed 519,520 

Thomas Arnold 520-523 

Arthur P. Stanley 523-529 

Doctrines of the First Broad Church 529,530 

The Second Broad Church: 

Difference between the First and Second Broad 

Churches 530,531 

Robertson of Brighton 531-533 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE UNITED STATES: THE UNITARIAN CHURCH. — THE UNIVERSALISTS. 

Novelty in American History 534 

Separation of Church and State 534-536 

Relations between the Old World and the United States 536, 537 

The Unitarian Church: 

The Venerable Stoddard 537,538 

Jonathan Edwards 538 

The Half- Way Covenant 538 

James Freeman 538,539 

Early Unitarian Publications 539,540 

Unitarianism in Harvard University 540 

Andover Theological Seminary 540,541 

Controversy between Channing and Worcester 541 

William Ellery Channing 541-544 

The Unitarian Creed 544-553 

The Christian Examiner 553 

The Young Men's Christian Union 553-558 

The Unitarian National Convention 558,559 

Later development of the Unitarian Church 559 

Emerson 559, 560 

Universalism : 

Rise in America 560,561 

Doctrines of Universalism 561,562 

A declamatory lament 562,563 

CHAPTER XXIV. j 

THE UNITED STATES CONTINUED: THEODORE PARKER. — ^LATER AUTHOBOT 

AND CONFLICTS. 1 

Early Attachment of the Unitarians to the Doctrine of 

Miracles 564-1 

Theodore Parker: I 

His Personal History 564, 565 

His Course toward Orthodoxy 566 

His Opinions 566-571 



CONTENTS, xix 

Page 

Influence of American Skepticism 571,572 

Frothingham's juvenile Work 572,573 

"Liberal Christianity" 573 

More recent Authors and Conflicts 574-576 

CHAPTER XXV. 

INDIRECT SERVICE OF SKEPTICISM — PRESENT OUTLOOK. 

Great Success the Result of strong Opposition 577-579 

Biblical Study indirectly benefited by the Attacks of Ration- 
alism 580,581 

Improvement of Church History 581-583 

Estimate of the Life of Christ 583-585 

Recent Biblical Criticism 585,586 

Limitations of Science and Philosophy 586,587 

Present conditions of Theological Thought 587-590 

APPENDIX. { 
Literature of Rationalism: '< 

Germany, Holland, and German Switzerland 591-599 ; 

Rationalistic Periodicals in Germany 599,600 i 

France and French Switzerland 600-603 

Rationalistic Periodicals in France 603 

Great Britain and the United States 603-617 

Literature of Unitarianism and Universalism 617-621 

Unitarian Periodicals 620,621 

Universalist Periodicals 621 

Index 623-633 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



INTRODUCTION. 

EATIONALISM DEFINED— ITS CHARACTER AS A SKEPTICAL 
DEVELOPMENT. 

Rationalism is the most recent, but not the least 
violent and insidious, of all tlie developments of skep- 
ticism. We purpose to show its historical position, and 
to present, as faithfully as possible, its antagonism to 
evangelical Christianity. The guardians of the interests 
of the church cannot excuse themselves from effort 
toward the eradication of this error by saying that it 
is one which will soon decay by the force of its natural 
autumn. Posterity will not hesitate to charge us with 
gross negligence if we fail to appreciate the magnitude 
of Rationalism, and only deal with it as the growth of 
a day. We have half conquered an enemy when we 
have gained a full knowledge of his strength. 

There was a time when Rationalism was a theme 
of interest to the Protestant church of Germany alone. 
But that day is now past. Having well nigh run its 
race in the land of Luther, it has crossed the Rhine 
into France and the Netherlands, invaded England, and 



2 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



now threatens the integrity of the domain of Anglo- 
Saxon theology. Thus it has assumed an importance 
which should not be overlooked by British and Ameri- 
can thinkers who love those dearly-bought treasures 
of truth that they have received as a sacred legacy from 
the martyrs and reformers of the English church. The 
recent writings of the exegetical Rationalists of Eng- 
land are sufficient to induce us to gather up our armor 
and adjust it for immediate defence. Delay will entail 
evil The reason why skepticism has wrought such 
fearful ravages at various stages during the career of 
the church has been the tardiness of the church in 
watching the sure and steady approach, and then in 
underrating the real strength of Ler adversary. The 
present History has been written for the specific purpose 
of awakening an interest in the danger that now threat- 
ens us. We have no ambition to deal with the past, 
fui'ther than to enable it to minister to the immediate 
demands of the present. We all belong to this genera- 
tion ; it calls for our energies ; it has its great wants ; 
and we shall be held justly responsible if we neglect 
to contribute our share toward the progress of our con- 
temporaries. 

The three principles which have influenced us to 
undertake a discussion of the present theme — and of 
the truth of which we are profoundly convinced — are 
the following : 

I. That Infidelity presents a systematic a^d 
HARMONIOUS HiSTORY. Our customary view of error is, 
that its history is disjointed, rendered so by the ardent, 
but unsteady, labors of the doubters of all periods since 
the origin of Christianity. We have ignored the his- 
torical movement of skepticism. Even the storms have 
their mysterious laws. The work of Satan is never 



INTEODUCTION. 



3 



planless. He adapts his measures to tlie new dangers 
tliat arise to threaten his dominion. The analogy be- 
tween the Rationalism of to-day and the infidelity of 
past ages is so striking that we can with difficulty rec- 
ognize the interval of centuries. We see the new faces, 
but the foes are old. Rationalism has repeatedly varied 
its method of attack ; but if we follow the marches of 
its whole campaign we shall find that the enemy which 
stands at our fortress-gate vdth the Assays and Me- 
views and Notes on Pentateuch and Joshua in hand, is 
the same one that assailed Protestant Germany with the 
Accommodation-theory and the Wolfenhiittel fragments. 
II. A History of a mischievous Tendency is the 

VERY BEST MeTHOD FOR ITS REFUTATION AND EXTIR- 
PATION. We can learn the full character of the good or 
evil of any abstract principle only by seeing its practical 
workings. The tree is known by its fruits. Rational- 
ism may be of evil character, but we must see the re- 
sults it has produced, — the great overthrow of faith it 
has effected, and its influence upon the pulpit and press 
of the countries invaded by it, before we can compre- 
hend the vastness of our danger. An enumeration of 
the evil doings of a public enemy is the best plan to 
forestall his future misdeeds. We are not to judge 
Rationalism by its professions. The question is not, 
What does it wish I At what does it aim ? or. What is 
its creed ? But the true way to measure, understand 
and judge it, is by answering the inquiry. What has it 
done ? Its work must determine its character. This 
work has been most injurious to the faith and life of 
the church, and its deeds must therefore be its con- 
demnation. There are those who say, " Tell us nothing 
about skepticism; we know too much about it already." 
Would it be a prudent request, if, before penetrating 



4 



HISTOKY OF EATIONALISM. 



the jungles of Asia, we should say, " Tell us nothing of 
the habits of the lion " ; or, before visiting a malarioua 
region of Africa, we should beg of the physician not to 
inform us of the prevalent fever and its appropriate 
remedy? "Forewarned is forearmed." We are sur- 
rounded by Eationalism in many phases ; it comes ta 
us in the periodical and the closely-printed volume. 
Even children are reading it in some shape or other. 
Would we know its danger ? then we must know its 
deeds. 

III. Of Rationalism it may be affiemed, as of all 
THE Phases of Infidelity, that it is not in its Results 
AN unmixed Evil, since God overrules its Work for 
THE Purification and Progress of his Church. A 
nation is never so pure as when emerging from the 
sevenfold-heated furnace. It was not before Manasseh 
was caught among thorns, bound with fetters, and car- 
ried to Babylon, that he " besought the Lord his God, 
and humbled himself greatly before the God of his 
fathers ; " nor was it before this humiliation that the 
Lord " brought him again to Jerusalem into his king- 
dom." The whole history of religious error shows that 
the church is cold, formal, and controversial before the 
visitation of skepticism. When every power is in fall 
exercise, infidelity stands aloof God has so provided 
for his people that he has even caused the delusion by 
which they have suffered to contribute great benefits but 
little anticipated by the deluded or the deluders them- 
selves. The intellectual labors of the German Ration 
alists have already shed an incalculable degree of light 
on the sacred books, and upon almost every branch of 
theology. But thus has God ever caused the wrath of 
man to praise him. 

Taking this view of the indirect benefits resulting 



INTRODUCTION. 



5 



from skepticism, we cannot lament, without an admix- 
tui'e of solace, that the path of Truth has always been 
rough. The Master, who declared himself " The Truth," 
premonished us by his own life that his doctrines were 
not destined to pervade the mind and heart of our race 
without encountering violent blows, and passing 
through whole winters of frost and storm. Many 
things attending the origin and planting of Christianity 
gave omen of antagonism to its claims in coming gener- 
ations. Nor could it be expected that the unsanctified 
reason of man would accept as the only worthy guide 
of faith and life what Judaism, Paganism, and Phi- 
losophy had long since decidedly rejected. But the 
spirit of Christianity is so totally at variance with that 
of the world that it is vain to expect harmony between 
them. Truth, however, will not suffer on that account ; 
and when the issues appear it will shine all the brighter 
for the fires through which it has passed. The country 
where Eationalism has exerted its fii'st and chief influ- 
ence is Germany, than which no nation of modern times 
has been more prospered or passed through deeper 
affliction. At one time she was the leader of religious 
liberty and truth, not only in Europe, but throughout 
the world. She was thirty years fighting the battles 
of Protestantism, but the end of the long conflict found 
her victorious. Since that day, however, she has lost 
her prestige of adherence to evangelical Christianity ; 
and her representative theologians and thinkers have 
distorted the Bible which she was the very first 
to unseal. We rejoice that her condition is more 
hopeful to-day than it was sixty years ago; but re- 
covery is not easy from a century-night of cold, re- 
pulsive nationalism. As a large number of those 
stupendous battles that have decided the political 



6 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



and territorial condition of Europe have been fought 
on the narrow soil of Belgium, so has Germany been 
for ages the contested field on which were deter- 
mined the great doctrinal and ecclesiastical questions 
of the European continent and of the world. Happily, 
the result has generally been favorable ; and let no 
friend of evangelical truth fear that Rationalism will 
not meet its merited fate. 

We must not imagine that, because the term Ra- 
tionalism has been frequently employed within the last 
few years, it is of very recent origin either as a word 
or skeptical type. The Aristotelian Humanists of 
Helmstadt w^ere called JEtatumalists in the beginning 
of the seventeenth century, and Comenius applied the 
same epithet to the Socinians in 1688.^ It was a com- 
mon word in England two hundred years ago. Nor 
was it imported into the English language from the 
German, either in a theological or a philosophical sense. 
There was a sect of Rationalists, in the time of the Com- 
monwealth, who called themselves such exactly on the 
same grounds as their successors have done in recent 
years. Some one writing the news from London under 
date of October 14, 1646, says : " There is a new sect 
sprung up among them [the Presbyterians and Inde- 
pendents], and these are the Rationalists, and what 
their reason dictates them in church or state stands for 
good until they be convinced with better." ^ But Ration- 
alists, in fact if not in name, existed on the Continent 
long anterior to this date. The Anti-Trinitarians, and 
Bodin, and Pucci were rigid disciples of Reason ; and 
their tenets harmonize with those of a later day.^ 



* Tholuck, Herzog's ReaZ-Emyclopcedie. Art. Eationalismm. 
s Trench, Study of Words, p. 147. 

^ As a fair specimen of the extent to which philological criticism is often 



INTRODUCTIOIf. 



7 



In order to arrive at a proper definition oi Rational- 
ism we should consult those authors who have given 
no little attention to this department of theological in- 
quiry. Nor would we be impartial if we adduced the 
language of one class to the exclusion of the other. We 
shall hear alike from the fiiends and adversaries of the 
whole movement, and endeavor to draw a proper con- 
clusion from their united testimony. It was Selden's 
advice to the students of ecclesiastical history, " to 
study the exaggerated statements of Earonius on the 
one side, and of the Magdebui'g Centuriators on the 
other, and be their own judges." Fortunately enough 
for a proper understanding of Rationalism, there is no 
such diversity of statement presented by our authori- 

carried by some of our German friends, when advocating a doubtful cause, 
we quote a paragraph in point from Dr. Riickert's work, Ber Ratioiialis- 
7nus, one of the feeblest apologies for neological thought: 

" What is Rationalism? We must try to get the meaning from the term 
itself. And what sort of a term is it ? Barbarous enough ! Its root is 
ratio, but it is directly from rationalis that the word in question is derived. 
Now this word is good enough in itself, for it signifies what is conform- 
able to reason, that which possesses the attributes and methods of reason. 
Man is a rational animal, and it is his rationality that distinguishes him 
from all other animals. So much for this part of the word Rationalism. 
Now for the "barbarous part of it, the -ism. This termination belongs to 
another language, the Greek -to-juoy, and is derived from a verbal ending 
which cannot be expressed in Latin, namely — l^eiv. Now if we examine 
certain intransitive verbs, such as ixT]8i^eiv, XaKojvi^civ, pooixat^eiv, dTTiKi^eii/, 
we shall find their common peculiarity is that the persons meant are not 
the real persons which the words seem to signify, but only act in their ca- 
pacity. Not a real Mede /xr^fit^fi ; no true Spartan XaKcovl^et ; and so of 
all the rest. But those Greeks who would rather belong to the Medes than 
be freemen, act lilce Medes, would prefer to he under Median rule — /xt^Si- 
(^ovdLv. This -to-juo'f is a termination from this class of verbs, and is employ- 
ed in reproach and not in praise. Hence Rationalist is a term of contempt, 
and means not one who is really reasonable, but would lilce to pass for suchy 
Of course the Doctor concludes that the word is a most flagrant and un- 
righteous misnomer; but we accept his philology and return him our 
thanks for his etymological study. 



8 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



ties. On the contrary, we shall perceive an unexpected 
and gratifying harmony. 

In Wegscheider's Institutiones Dogmaticoe^ a work 
which for nearly half a century has stood as an ac 
knowledged and highly respected authority on the sys- 
tematic theology of the Rationalists, we read language 
to this effect : " Since that doctrine (of supernaturalism) 
is encumbered with various difficulties, every day made 
more manifest by the advances of learning, especially 
historical, physical, and philosophical, there have been 
amongst more recent theologians and philosophers not 
a few who, in various ways, departing from it, thought 
it right to admit, even in the investigation and explana- 
tion of divine things, not only that formal use of human 
reason which regards only the method of expounding 
dogmas, but also the material use, by which the subject- 
matter of the particular doctrines is submitted to inquiry. 

" Thus arose that of which the generic name is 
Rationalism, or that law or rule of thinking, intimately 
united with the cultivation of talent and mind, by 
which we think that as well in examining and judging 
of all things presented to us in life and the range of 
universal learning, as in those matters of most grave 
importance which relate to religion and morals, we must 
follow strenuously the norm of reason nghtly applied, 
as of the highest faculty of the mind ; which law of 
thinking and perceiving, if it be applied to prove any 
positive religion (theological Rationalism) lays it down 
as an axiom that religion is re vealed to men in no other 
manner than that which is agreeable both to the nature 
of things and to reason, as the witness and interpreter 
of divine providence ; and teaches that the subject- 
matter of every supposed supernatural revelation, is to 
be examined and judged according to the ideas regard- 



mTKODUOTIOH. 



9 



ing religion and morality, wliicli we have formed in the 
mind by the help of reason. . . . Whosoever, there- 
fore, despising that supremacy of human reason, main- 
tains that the authority of a revelation, said to have 
been communicated to certain men in a supernatural 
manner, is such that it must be obeyed by all means, 
without any doubt, — that man takes away and over- 
tui-ns from the foundation the true nature and dignity 
of man, at the same time cherishes the most pernicious 
laziness and sloth, or stirs up the depraved errors of 
fanaticism. . . . As to that which is said to be 
above reason, the truth of which can by no means be 
understood, there is no possible way open to the human 
mind to demonstrate or affirm it; wherefore to acknowl- 
ed2:e or affirm that which is thouo-ht to be above rea- 
son is rightly said to be against reason and contrarj' 
to it. 

" The persuasion concerning the supernatural and 
miraculous, and at the same time immediate, revelation 
of God, cannot be reconciled with the idea of God 
eternal, always consistent with himself, omnipotent, 
omniscient, and most wise, by whose power, operative 
through all eternity and exerted in perfect harmony 
with the highest wisdom, we rightly teach that the 
whole nature of things exists and is preserved. . . . 
This being so, it seems that the natural revelation or 
manifestation of God, made by the works of nature, is 
the only one which can be rightly defended, and this 
may be divided into universal or common, and particu- 
lar or singular. The universal indeed is affected by the 
natui^al faculties of the mind, and other helps of the 
universal nature of things, by which man is led to con- 
ceive and cultivate the knowledge of divine things. 
That we cbW. particular and mediate^ in a sense different 



10 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



froju the elder witers, which is contained in the com- 
pass of things happening according to nature, by which, 
God being the author, some men are excited above 
others to attain the principles of true religion, and to 
impart with signal success those things, accommodated 
indeed to the desires of their countrymen, and sanc- 
tioned by some particular form of religious instruction. 
A revelation of this kind consists as well in singular 
gifts of genius and mind, with which the messenger, 
and, as it were, its interpreter, is perceived to be fur- 
nished, as in illustrious proofs of divine providence, 
conspicuous in his external life. But the more agreeably 
to the will of that same God he uses these helps to be 
ascribed to God, and full of a certain divine fervor, and 
excelling in zeal for virtue and piety, the more he scat- 
ters the seeds of a doctrine truly divine, i. e., true in 
itself, and worthy of God, and to be propagated by 
suitable institutions, the more truly will he flourish 
amongst other men with the authority of a divine 
teacher or ambassador. For as our mind partakes of 
the divine nature and disposition (2 Peter i. 4), so 
without the favor and help of the Deity it is not car- 
ried out to a more true species of religion. 

" But whatever narrations especially accommodated 
to a certain age, and relating miracles and mysteries, are 
united with the history and subject-matter of revelation 
of this kind, these ought to be referred to the natural 
sources and true nature of human knowledge. By how 
much the more clearly the author of the Christian 
religion, not vrithout the help of Deity, exhibited to men 
the idea of reason imbued with true religion, so as to 
represent as it were an apaugasma of the divine reason, 
or the divine spirit, by so much the more diligently 
ought man to strive to approach as nearly as possible 



INTEODUCTION. 



11 



lo form that archetype in the rairid, and to study to imi- 
tate it in life and manners to the utmost of his ability. 
Behold here the intimate and eternal union and agree- 
ment of Christianity with Rationalism." 

Staudlin, at first a Rationalist, but in later life more 
inclined to supernaturalism, says : " I do not now look 
to the various meanings in which the word Rationalism 
has been used. I understand by it here only generally 
the opinion that mankind are led by their reason and 
especially by the natural powers of their mind and 
soul, and by the observation of nature which sun-ounds 
them, to a true knowledge of divine and sensible things, 
and that reason has the highest authority and right of 
decision in matters of faith and morality, so that an 
edifice of faith and morals built on this foundation shall 
be called Rationalism. It still remains undecided 
whether this system declares that a supernatural revela- 
tion is impossible and ought to be rejected. That no- 
tion rather lies in the word Naturalism, which however 
is sometimes used as synonymous with Rationalism. 
It has been well said that Naturalism is distinguished 
from Rationalism by rejecting all and every revelation 
of God, especially any extraordinary one through cer- 
tain men. This, however, is not the case with many 
persons called Naturalists both by themselves and others. 
Supernaturalism consists in general in the conviction 
that God has revealed himself supernaturally and im- 
mediately. What is revealed might perhaps be discov- 
ered by natural methods, but either not at all or very 
late by those to whom it is revealed. It may also })e 
something which man could never have known by nat- 
ural methods ; and then arises the question, whether 
man is capable of such a revelation. The notion of a 
miracle cannot well be separated from such a revelation, 



12 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



whetlier it happens out of, on, or in men. Wliat is 
revealed may belong to the order of nature, but an 
order higher and unknown to us, which we could never 
have known without miracles, and cannot bring under 
the law of nature." ^ 

Professor Hahn, in speaking of the work just refer- 
red to, and of the subject in general, makes the follow- 
ing remarks : " In very recent times, during which 
Eationalism has excited so much attention, two persons 
especially, Bretschneider and Staudlin, have endeavored 
to point out the historical use of the word, but both 
have failed. It is therefore worth while to examine 
the matter afresh. With respect to the Rationalists, 
they give out Rationalism as a very different matter 
from Naturalism. Rohr, the author of the Letters on 
nationalism, chooses to understand by Naturalism only 
Materialism ; and Wegscheider, only Pantheism. In 
this way those persons who have been usually reckoned 
the heads of the Naturalists ; namely, Herbert, Tindal, 
and others ; will be entirely separated from them, for 
they were far removed from Pantheism or Materialism. 
Bretschneider, who has set on foot the best inquiry on 
this point, says that the word Rationalism has been 
confused with the word Naturalism since the appear- 
ance of the Kantian philosophy, and that it was intro- 
duced into theology by Reinhard and Gabler. An 
accurate examination respecting these words gives the 
following results : The word Naturalism arose first in 
the sixteenth century, and was spread in the seventeenth. 
It was understood to include those who allowed no 
other knowledge of religion except the natural, which 
man could shape out of his own strength, and conse- 
quently excluded all supernatural revelation. As to 

^ Geschichte des JSationalismus und Sup^maturaliamvs, pp. 3—4, 



INTRODUCTION. 



13 



the different forms of Naturalism, theologians say there 
are three ; the first, which they call Pelagianism, and 
which considers human dispositions and notions as 
perfectly pure and clear by themselves, and the religious 
knowledge derived from them as sufficiently explicit. 
A grosser kind denies all particular revelation ; and the 
grossest of all considers the world as God. As to Ra- 
tionalism, this word was used in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries by those who considered reason as 
the source and norm of faith. Amos Comenius seems 
first to have used this word in 1661, and it never had 
a good sense. In the eighteenth century it was applied 
to those who were in earlier times called by the name 
of Naturalist." ^ 

Of all writers on the subject of Rationalism we give 
the palm of excellence to the devout and learned Hugh 
James Rose, of Cambridge University. As far as we 
know he was the first to expose to the English-speaking 
world the sad state to which this form of skepticism 
had reduced Germany. Having visited that country in 
1824, he delivered four discourses on the subject before 
the university, which were afterward published under 
the title of the State of Protestantism in Germany. 
Thus far, in spite of the new works which may have 
appeared, this account of Rationalism still holds an im- 
portant place. We shall have occasion raoi'e than once 
to refer to its interesting pages. Of Rationalism he says : 

" The word has been used in Germany in various 
senses, and has been made to embrace alike those who 
positively reject all revelation and those who profess to 
receive it. I am inclined, however, to believe that the 
distinction between Naturalists and Rationalists is not 
quite so wide, either, as it would appear to be at first 

' Be Rationalismi : A Disputation at Leipzig. 

3 



14 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



sight, or as one of ttem assuredly wishes it to appear. 
For if I receive a system, be it of religion, of morals, or 
of politics, only so far as it approve itself to my reason, 
whatever be the authority that presents it to me, it is 
idle to say that I receive the system out of any respect 
to that authority. I receive it only because my reason 
approves it, and I should of course do so if an authority 
of far inferior value were to present the system to mt^. 
This is what that division of Rationalists, which pro- 
fesses to receive Christianity and at the same time to 
make reason the supreme arbiter in matters of faith, has 
done. Their system, in a word, is this : they assume 
certain general principles, which they ^ maintain to be 
the necessary deductions of reason from an extended 
and unprejudiced contemplation of the natural and 
moral order of things, and to be in themselves im- 
mutable and universal. Consequently anything which, 
on however good authority, may be advanced in ap- 
parent opposition to them must either be rejected as 
unworthy of rational belief, or at least explained away, 
till it is made to accord with the assumed principles, — 
and the truth or falsehood of all doctrines proposed is 
to be decided according to their agreement or disagree- 
ment with those principles.' When Christianity, then, 
is presented to them, they inquire what there is in it 
which agrees with their assumed principles, and whatso- 
ever does so agree, they receive as true. But whatever 
is ^'2^^' comes from God, and consequently all of Chris- 
tianity which they admit to be true, they hold to be 
divine. 

Those who are generally termed Rationalists,' 
says Dr. Bretschneider, 'admit universally, in Chris- 
tianity, a divine, benevolent, and positive appointment 
for the good of mankind, and Jesus as a Messenger of 



INTRODUCTION. 



15 



divine Providence, believing that the true and everlast- 
ing word of God is contained in the Holy Scripture, 
and that by the same the welfare of mankind will be 
obtained and extended. But they deny therein a 
supernatural and miraculous working of God, and con- 
sider the object of Christianity to be that of introducing 
into the world such a religion as reason can compre- 
hend ; and they distinguish the essential from the un- 
essential, and what is local and temporary from that 
which is universal and permanent in Christianity.' 
There is, however, a third class of divines, which in fact 
differs very little from this, though very widely in pro- 
fession. They affect to allow ^ a revealing operation of 
God,' but establish on internal proofs rather than oil 
miracles the divine nature of Christianity. They allow 
that revelation may contain much out of the power of 
reason to explain, but say that it should assert nothing 
contrary to reason, but rather what may be proved by 
it. This sounds better, but they who are acquainted 
with the writings of the persons thus desciibed, know 
that by establishing Christianity on internal proofs, 
they only mean the accepting those doctrines which 
they like, and which seem to them reasonable^ and that 
though they allow in theory that revelation may con- 
tain what are technically called much above reason, yet 
in practice they reject the positive doctrines of Chris- 
tianity (I mean especially the doctrines of the Trinity, 
the Atonement, the Mediation and Intercession of oux 
Lord, Original Sin, and Justification by Faith), because 
they allege that those doctrines are contrary to reason. 
The difference between them and the others is therefore 
simply this, that while the others set no limits at all to 
the powers of reason in matters of faith, they set such 
a limit in theory but not in practice, and consequently 



16 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



cannot justly demand to be separated from tlie 
others.'' ^ 

One of the ablest advocates of Snpernatnralism 
among English divines was Dr. A. McCaul, of Lon- 
don. He joined issue successfully with the Eation- 
alists. We quote a specimen of his method of argu- 
ment. His definition of Rationalism is beautifully 
lucid and logical. He says : 

" This doctrine then plainly denies the existence and 
the possibility of a supernatural and immediate revela- 
tion from the Almighty, and maintains that to claim 
supreme authority for any supposed supernatural reli- 
gion is degrading to the dignity and the nature of man. 
It enters into dii'ect conflict with the statements of the 
Old Testament writers, who clearly and unmistakably 
assert the existence of a divine communication which is 
called ^ The law of the Lord,' ' The law of his mouth,' 
^The testimony of God,' ^The saying of God,' ^The 
word of the Lord,' ^ The word that goeth forth out of 
his mouth,' ^ The judgment of the Lord,' ^ The command- 
ment of the Lord.' 

" Now it is not intended to strain the allusion to 
the mouth or lips of the Lord beyond that which the 
figure may fairly bear. But the expression does cer- 
tainly mean that there is some direct, immediate, and 
therefore supernatural communication from the great 
Creator of all things. The writers who used these ex- 
pressions did not mean that as reason is given by God, 
so whatever reason may excogitate is the word of God. 
They would not have used these expressions concerning 
Truth that may be found in heathen writers. They 
believed and recorded that God had manifested himself 
audibly to the ears, and visibly to the eyes of men. 

* State of Protestantism in Germany, pp. XXII-XXVI. 



LNTKODUCTION. 



It 



They did not therefore hold the doctrine that super- 
natural revelation is impossible, or derogatory to reason 
or inconsistent with the nature and attributes of Him 
who is eternal. 

^^It is almost needless to refer to instances. God 
spake with Adam, with Cain, with Noah. In the latter 
case the communication led to such actions, and Avas 
followed by such results, that without rejecting the his- 
tory altogether, there can be no doubt of a miraculous 
communication. Noah knew of the coming flood — 
built an ark for himself and a multitude of animals — 
prepared food — was saved with his family, while the 
world perished — floated for months on the waters, and 
when he came out had again a manifestation of the 
Deity. So Abraham, so Moses, not now to recount any 
more. Indeed the writer referred to does not deny 
this. He admits that in Scripture the knowledge of 
divine things is referred immediately to the Kevelation 
of God, and that though the modes of this Revelation 
are various, they appear often to overstep the laws and 
course of nature. He enumerates as modes of revela- 
tion. Epiphanies of God himself, of angels — heavenly 
voices — dreams — afflatus, or the Holy Spirit. 

" How then does he reconcile this with his denial 
of all supernatural revelation, or show that these Epi- 
phanies of God and angels were mere developments of 
reason ? He does not try to reconcile them at all. He 
simply rejects them as false. He comes directly into 
collision with the credibility and veracity of the Scrip- 
ture narratives, and therefore leaves us no alternative 
but to disbelieve the Bible as fabulous, or to reject 
Eationalism as inconsistent with our rule of faith. This 
system not only generally denies the possibility of 
supernatural revelation, but asserts that all the partica- 



18 HISTORY OF BATIONALISM. I 

lai" narratives of all such communications from God are! 
incredible ; nothing better than ghost stories or fairy' 
tales ; equally unworthy of God and man, the offspring 
of an ignorant and unenlightened age and nation, and 
therefore rejected by these men of reason and science. 
How this differs from the doctrine of Deists and open 
opposers of Christianity, it is difficult to conceive, ex- 
cept that it seems to be rather worse. Even Boling 
broke admits suj^ernatural Revelation to be possible. 
Tom Paine himself says, ^ Revelation when applied to 
religion means something immediately communicated 
from God to man. No one will deny or dispute the 
power of the Almighty to make such a communication 
if he pleases.' Spinoza asserts that the ^ Israelites heard 
a true voice at the delivery of the ten commandments ; 
that God spoke face to face with Moses ; and generally, 
that God can communicate immediately with men, and 
that though natural science is divine yet its propagators 
cannot be called prophets.' That the Rationalist view of 
revelation is contrary to the popular belief of Christians 
generally, and of Christian churches and divines pai-tic- 
ularly, there can be no doubt. It is intended so 
to be. . . . 

The Rationalist professes to believe that all the 
knowledge of truth at which man arrives is owing to 
the original wisdom, will, and power of the Almighty 
in giving man a certain intellectual constitution, to be 
unfolded by the cii'cumstances of human history and 
necessities — that therefore moral and religious ti-uth, 
such as the Rationalists acknowledge, is still to be 
ascribed to the purposes and power and efficacy of the 
Great Spirit, acting upon that which is material and 
compound. 

" Why, then, should it be impossible for the Creator 



INTRODUCTION. 



19 



to slioileii tlie process, to lielp man in Ms painful, and 
often unsuccessful searcli after truth, and to make 
known tliat which exists in the Divine mind and pur- 
pose ? To say that he cannot, is in fact to depose him 
from the throne of omnipotence, and to bring us back 
either to two eternal independent principles, incapable 
of all communication, or to drive us to Pantheism. K 
there ever was a period in dui^ation in which God could 
act upon matter, or endue infinite intelligences with the 
means and capability of knowledge, he can do so still." * 

M. Saintes, who has investigated the history of this 
subject more thoroughly than any other writer, says of 
the simifications and limits of Rationalism : 

" I myself at first imagined that it signified the wise 
and constant exercise of reason on religious subjects, 
but in studying the matter historically I soon found 
that it is the same with this word as with many others 
which, having lost theii* original meaning, now express 
an idea directly contrary to that which their etymology 
seems to indicate. It is indisputably true that God, in 
granting reason to man, has not forbidden its exercise. 
As religion, the queen of all minds, possesses indestruc- 
tible rights over them, so has human reason also rights 
which cannot be disputed. Kant has justly said. The 
faith which should oppose itself to reason could not 
lono^er exist. With this view we form an idea of Ra- 
tionalism similar to that conceived by the great Leib- 
nitz, which, with our present ideas of truth, we cannot 
regard as unreasonable. But this right of human 
reason to examine and discuss differs widely from its 
self-constitution as supreme judge on religious matters, 
and from the wish to submit God and conscience to its 
own tribunal, which it declares to be infallible. This, 

* ITioughts on Rationalism, pp. 23-32. 



20 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



however, has been the case in modern times when Phi- 
losophy has openly avowed itself the enemy of Chris- 
tianity, and when those who were terrified by its rash 
demands have sought to confound them by the devices 
of Rationalism — thus hastening to ruin the edifice which 
they aspired to restore. . . . Rationalism must not, 
therefore, be understood to signify the use which theo- 
logians have made of reason in matters of faith. Did 
the reader thus interpret it he would mistake our aim. 
He would be deceived as to the character of the labors 
which it is our wish to describe. He would attribute 
to the author of this history intentions which he could 
not entertain, and religious opinions which his respect for 
human reason would compel him to disavow. The 
apostles of the gosjDel continually appeal to the reason 
of their hearers, and Christ himself argues the increas- 
ing exercise of the eye of the soid^ as he calls conscience, 
in judging of the truth which he announces — Matt. vi. 
23. For a good conscience is always better disposed to 
rise to the knowledge of the truth ; while one heavy 
laden and harassed is exceedingly prone to receive dog- 
mas without properly understanding their import, 
because it feels their truth through the consolations 
which they offer. In no age of Christianity has there 
arisen a serious discussion on this subject, though the 
extravagant pretensions of Rationalism have provoked 
some exaggerations which can never prevail over the 
ancient Christian system. That system by no means 
forbade the exercise of human intelligence in religious 
matters, though it employed a superior and only infal- 
lible reason — the divine reason, the doctrinal expression 
of which is found in the books which all Christians 
have hitherto considered divine, and whose authenticity 
and truth cannot be disputed without overturning that 



i 



INTKODUCTION. 



21 



Christianity, wMcli lias been professed during eighteen 
centuries. But modern Rationalism has done more 
than assert the right of exercising reason ; it has pre- 
tended that to this faculty alone belongs the privilege 
of deciding on man's religious belief and his moral 
duty ; and that if, from long custom, any respect is still 
due to revelation, it should only receive it when it is 
not opposed to the judgments of reason. But if this 
reason were sufficient for mankind, why should divine 
revelation be in any case opposed to it ? 

" Rationalism is not a systematic incredulity as to 
religious truths. Far from being so, it makes preten- 
sions of developing the religious feelings to the highest 
degree ; and there is in the writings of its most distin- 
guished disciples something which arouses even the 
most lethargic minds. But it is far from attaining its 
end ; for although it constitutes itself the supreme judge 
of Christianity, it does not really adopt one of the lead- 
ing doctrines of that religion which alone has power 
over the moral nature of man. Its influence, if we ob- 
serve it closely, extends only over his feelings ; it fails 
to penetrate into the depths of his being ; and can we 
forget that one of its essential characteristics is to Avage 
deadly war against the supernatural element which 
abounds in the Bible, and which Rationalism would 
wholly eradicate ? An enlightened Supernaturalist will 
then very willingly confess that Naturalism may be 
professed with a semblance of reason and in good faith, 
and he can even consider it as a system of philosophy 
wherein are to be found fewer philosophical elements 
than in any other. But simple good sense forbids him 
to imagine it possible to profess Rationalism and at the 
same time to retain the name of Christian." ^ 



* Histoire du Ratioiialisme. pp. 1-6. 



22 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISE!. 



The most labored defence of Rationalism is by Mr. 
Lecky.^ He has written in great calmness, taken great 
pains to generalize his investigations, and followed 
closely in the steps of Mr. Buckle, in his brilliant frag- 
ment of the History of Civilization. But his argu- 
ment is false. According to Mr. Lecky, human reason 
is the only factor of history. The agency of the Holy 
Spirit is ignored. Elaborate creeds and liturgical ser 
vices are a barrier to the mind's progress, because they 
shackle the intellect by impure traditions. Rationalism 
is the only relief of these later times. " Its central con- 
ception," says our author, " is the elevation of conscience 
into a position of supreme authority as the religious 
organ, a verifying faculty discriminating between truth 
and error. It regards Christianity as designed to pre- 
side over the moral development of mankind, as a con. 
ception which was to become more and more sublimated 
and spiritualized as the human mind passed into new 
phases, and was able to bear the splendor of a more 
unclouded light. Religion it believes to be no excep- 
tion to the general law of progress, but rather the high- 
est form of its manifestation, and its earlier systems but 
the necessary steps of an imperfect development. In 
its eyes the moral element of Christianity is as the sun 
in heaven, and dogmatic systems are as the clouds that 
intercept and temper the exceeding brightness of its 
rays. The insect, whose existence is but for a moment, 
might well imagine that these were indeed eternal, that 
their majestic columns could never fail, and that their 
luminous folds were the very source and centre of light. 
And yet they shift and vary with each changing breeze ; 
they blend and separate ; they assume new forms and 

' History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Bationalism in 
Europe. By W. E. H. Lecky, M. A. 2 vols. Longmans, London, 1865- 



i 



mTEODUCTION. 



23 



exhibit new dimensions ; as the sun that is above thera 
waxes more glorious in its power, they are permeated 
and at last absorbed by its increasing splendor ; they 
recede, and wither, and disappear, and the eye ranges 
far beyond the sphere they had occupied into the in- 
finity of glory that is before them. . . . Rationalism 
is a system which would unite in one sublime synthesis 
all the past forms of human belief, which accepts with 
triumphant alacrity each new development of science, 
having no stereotyped standard to defend, and which 
represents the human mind as pursuing on the highest 
subjects a path of continual progress toward the fullest 
and most transcendent knowledge of the Deity. . . . 
It clusters around a series of essentially Christian concep- 
tions — eq^uality, fi'aternity, the suppression of war, the 
elevation of the poor, the love of truth, and the diffu- 
sion of liberty. It revolves around the ideal of Chris- 
tianity, and represents its spirit without its dogmatic 
system and its supernatural narratives. From both of 
these it unhesitatingly I'ecoils, while deriving all its 
strength and nourishment from Christian ethics."^ 

The present age, if we hearken to Mr. Lecky, is 
pm'ely Rationalistic, because purely progressive. The 
world has emerged from its blindness and ignorance by 
the innate force of the mind. Reason, the great ma- 
gician, has uplifted its wand ; and lo, the creatures of 
night disappear ! It has dispelled the foolish old no- 
tions of magic, witchcraft, and miracles. It has over- 
come the spirit of persecution, the childish conception 
of original sin, and the doctrine of eternal punishmentc 
It has put an end to bull-baiting, cock-fighting, and all 
the lower forms of vicious pleasure. It has seculai'ized 

* History of the Rise and Spirit of Rationalism in Europe^ vol. L, 
pp. 183-185. 



24 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



politics, overtlirown tlie notion of the divine right of 
kings, and now creates and fosters all the industrial 
developments of the age. Protestantism is excellent 
when allied to Eationalism ; but when opposed to it, it 
is no better than any other conglomeration of creeds 
and liturgies. There is no such thing as a fixed notion 
of God and Providence. The conceptions of man on 
these subjects will change with the progress of the race. 
Human reason, therefore, and not revelation, is the sole 
arbiter of truth. 

Thus Mr. Lecky places himself beside his prede- 
cessors in ignoring the agency of the Holy Spirit, either 
in giving inspired truth to the world, or in educating 
the church. 

From the foregoing authorities it is very apparent 
that the Kationalists do not deny the special features 
of skepticism with which their opponents charge them. 
They admit frankly that they give the precedence to 
Reason, when the alternative is Reason or Revelation, 
instead of adopting a positive creed from the principle, 
that, if we would ascertain the character of Revelation, 
we must begin our inquiry by examining the doctrines 
it contains, and then by comparing them with our no- 
tions of what a Revelation ought to be. Thus the ca- 
pricious dictates of reason are made to decide the quality 
of revealed truth. Besides, wherever a mysterious ac- 
count is contained in a book which in the main is ac- 
cepted, such mystery is cast out as altogether unlikely, 
probably the poetic version of some early legend. A 
miracle is recounted ; one of the best attested of all 
" It could never have happened," the Rationalists say, 
" for Nature has made it impossible." 

There have been several classes of Rationalists. 
Some were men of very worthy character ; and, save in 



INTEODUCTION. 



26 



their opinions, were entitled to the high respect of their 
generation. Semler lived a beautiful life ; and his 
glowing utterance on his daughter's death exhibited 
not only a father's love, but a Christian's faith. Bret- 
schneider, himself a Rationalist, gives the follomng 
classification of his confreres: 

The first class consider Revelation a superstition, 
and Jesus either an enthusiast or a deceiver. To 
this class belong Wiinsch and Paalzow, but no divine. 
The second class do not allow that there was any 
divine operation in Christianity in any way, and 
refer the origin of Christianity to mere natural causes. 
They make the life of Christ a mere romance, and him. 
self a member of secret associations ; and consider the 
Scriptures as only human writings in which the word of 
God is not to be found. To this class belong Bahrdt, 
Reimarus, and Venturini (the last two not divines), and 
Brennecke. The third class comprise the persons 
usually called Rationalists. They acknowledge in 
Christianity an institution divine, beneficent, and for 
the good of the world ; and Jesus as a messenger of 
God ; and they think that in Scripture is found a true 
and eternal word of God, — only they deny any super- 
natural and miraculous working of God, and make the 
object of Christianity to be the introduction of religion 
into the world, its preservation, and extension. They 
distmguish between what is essential and non-essential 
in Christianity, between what is local and temporal, and 
what is imiversal. That is to say, they allow that there 
is good in Christianity — that all that is good comes from 
God ; but mii^acles, inspiration, everything immediately 
coming from God, they wholly disbelieve. Among this 
class are Kant, Steinbart, Krug, as philosophers ; and, 
as divines, W. A. Teller, Lofiler, Thiess, Henke, J. E. C. 



26 HISTOKY OF KATIONALLSM. ^ 

Schmidt, De Wette, Paulus, Wegsclieider, and Ruhr. 
The fourth class go a little higher. They consider the 
Bible and Christianity as a divine revelation in a higher 
sense than the Rationalists. They assume a revealing 
operation of God distinguishable from his common 
providence ; carefully distinguish the periods of this 
divine direction ; found the divinity of Christianity more 
on its internal evidence than on miracles ; but especially 
separate church belief from the doctrines of Scripture ; 
reform it according to the sentiments of the Divine 
Word ; and require that Reason should try Revelation, 
and that Revelation should contain nothing against, 
though it may well have much above, Reason. Doder- 
lein, Morus, Reinhard, Ammon, Schott, Niemeyer, Bret- 
schneider, and others, belong to this class. 

The only objection to this classification is the one 
urged by Rose ; namely, that only a few of the theo- 
logical writers would appear to have been violent Ra- 
tionalists, while the larger class would seem to have 
held the moderate opinions which Bretschneider him- 
self professes to adopt. The contrary is the fact, as 
any one at all acquainted with the number of theologi- 
cal writers of the period in question can determine. 
The spirit of the Rationalistic literature of the time was 
decidedly violent and destructive. 

In glancing at some of the general causes which 
have made Rationalism so successful in its hold upon 
the popular mind, we find that it has possessed many 
advantages over almost any other form of skepticism 
that has appeared during the history of the church. 

Prominent among these causes were its multiplied 
affiliations with the church. It had thus a fine van- 
tage-ground on which to wage deadly war against the 
text and doctrines of the Bible. The first antagonists 



mXRODUCllO^^. 



27 



of Christianity came from without ; and they dealt their 
heaviest blows with a deep and thorough conviction 
that the whole system they were combating was 
absolutely false, absurd, and base. And, in fact, many 
later enemies of Revelation have come fi'om without the 
pale of Christianity. But the great Coryphaei of Ra- 
tionalism have sprung from the very bosom of the 
church, were educated under her maternal care ; and, at 
the same time that they were endeavoring to demolish 
the superstructure of divine inspiration, they were, in 
the eyes of the people, its strongest pillars, the accred- 
ited spiritual guides of the land, teaching in the most 
famed universities of the Continent, and preaching in 
churches which had been hallowed by the struggles 
and triumphs of the Reformation. 

German Protestantism cannot complain that Ra- 
tionalism was the work of acknowledged foes ; but is 
bound to confess, with confusion of face, that it has 
been produced by her own sons ; and that English 
Deism and French Atheism were welcomed, and trans- 
muted into far more insidious and destructive agencies 
than they had ever been at home. The Rationalists 
did not discard the Bible, but professed the strongest 
attachment to it. They ever boasted that their sole 
object was the defence and elevation of it. Because 
we love it," they said, " we are putting ourselves to all 
this trouble of elucidating it. It grieves us beyond 
measure to see how it has been suffering from the 
vagaries of weak minds. We are going to place it in 
the hands of impartial Reason ; so that, for once at 
least, it may become plain to the masses. We will call 
in all the languages and sciences to aid us in exhuming 
its long-buried treasures, in order that the wayfaring 
man, though a fool, may appropriate them. And as to 



28 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



the cliurcli, who would say aught agaiust our venerable 
mother? We love her dearly. We confess, indeed, 
that we love the green fields and gray mountain-rocks . 
better than her Sabbath services ; nor do we have much 
respect for her Sabbath at all. But we cherish her , 
memories, and are proud of her glory. Yet the people 
do not understand her mysteries well enough. They 
do not love her as much as we do. Therefore we will , 
stir them up to the performance of long-neglected du- 
ties. They ignorantly cling too proudly to her forms 
and confessions. But we will aid them to behold her , 
in a better light. We know the true path of her pros- 
perity, for do you not see that we have been born and 
bred within her dear fold ? Let everybody follow us. 
We will bring you into light." Had outspoken enemies 
of the church and inspiration, though doubly gifted and 
multiplied in number, set themselves to the same de- 
stmctive work that engaged the labors of these so-called 
friends, they could not have inflicted half the injury. 
They had razed to the ground tower after tower of the 
popular faith before their designs were discovered. And 
yet we must do them the credit to say that they did 
not intend to do the harm that they eventually accom- 
plished. But human agencies achieve their legitimate 
results without regard to the motives that give them 
impulse. No doubt, many a Rationalist, as he looked 
back from his death-bed on the ruin to which he had 
contributed, trembled with astonishment at the poison- 
ous fruit of his labors. Christ beheld a broader field 
than we can see, when he said, " A man's foes shall be 
they of his own household." 

This religious exterior has been a powerful auxiliaiy 
to the growth of Rationalism. In the earlier stages of 
its history, every utterance regarding the authenticity 



INTRODUCTION. 



29 



of any books of Scripture was carefully guarded. The 
boldest stroke that this species of skepticism has roade 
was that of Strauss in his lAfe of Jesus ; but that 
work was only the outgrowth of long doubt, and 
the honest, fi^ank expression of what a certain class of 
Rationalists had been burning to say for a century. 

arents who sent their sons to the university to listen 
to such men as Semler, Thomasius, and Paulus, had not 
the remotest idea that institutions of such renown for 
learning and religion were at that very time the hotbeds 
of rank infidelity. Even the State cabinets that con- 
trolled the professorial chairs could not believe for a 
long time that men who had been chosen to teach 
theology were spending all their power in corrupting 
the religious sentiment of the land. Large congrega- 
tions were sometimes startled with strange announce- 
ments from their pastors, to the effect that the supposed 
miraculous dividing of the Eed Sea was only occasioned 
by certain natural forces of wind and tide ; that all the 
rest of the Old Testament miracles were pure myths ; 
and that many parts of the New Testament were writ- 
ten at a later time and by other authors than those 
whose names are usually associated with them. " Het- 
erodoxy," was whispered. But the reply was, " Better 
have heterodoxy than these miserable disputes on Elec- 
tion and the Lord's Supper, to which we have been 
compelled to listen almost ever since Luther laid his 
body down to die." Fledgling theologians would come 
home from the university, and read aloud to the family - 
group the notes of lectures which they had heard during 
the last semester. The aged pair, looking up in wonder, 
would say, " The good and great doctors of our Eef- 
ormation never taught such things as these." But their 
sons would answer, " Oh, the world has grown much 



30 HISTOKY OF KATIONALISM. | 

wiser since their day. New discoveries in pliilosopli} 
and science have opened new avenues of truth, and our 
eyes are blessed that we see, and our ears that we hear. 
Just wait until we get into the pulpit, and we will set 
the people to thinking in a new way." Thus the 
enemy was sowing tares while the chm^ch was dream- 
ing of a plenteous harvest. 

Rationalism was very adroit in its initial steps. Its 
method of betrayal was, Judas-like, to sit in friendly 
intercourse beside its victim, and afterward, whan the 
fulness of malevolent inspiration had come, to give the 
fatal kiss in the presence of enemies. The people did 
not know the ills they were about to suffer until de- 
liverance was well-nigh hopeless. Had nationalism 
begun by laying down its platform and planning the 
work of proof, the forces of the opposition might havo 
been organized. But it commenced without a platform, 
and worked long without one. The systematic theol 
ogy of Bretschneider would by no means be accepted 
by the entire class of Rationalistic divines. To get a 
fair conception of what has been the aggregate sentiment 
of the whole class, one must wander through hundreds of 
volumes of exegesis, history, philosophy, and romance ; 
and these covering a space of many years. Even when 
you hold up your treasure, and cry " Eureka ! " your 
shrewd opponent will coolly say that you have given a 
false interpretation, and have drawn wi'ong conclusions, 
— that his masters never claimed such an absui'dity. 
Rationalism looked upon Revelation as a tottering edi- 
fice, and set itself busily at work to destroy the entire 
superstructure. But sometimes it is the surrounding 
vines and trees that shake in the autumn storm, and 
not the building itself ; and often beneath the worm 
eaten bark there is a great oaken heart, which no 



INTRODUCTION. 



31 



arm is strong enough and no axe sufficiently keen to 
cleave. 

Eationalism has been striving to destroy a house 
I which was built upon a rock ; and if it fell not, the 
fault lay not in the absence of ingenuity and strength 
of attack, but in the undecayed material and deeply- 
grounded solidity of the structure. 

! We are not blind to the extenuating circumstances 
that are adduced for Rationalism. The motives of its 
founders seemed pure enough, for these men held their 
life-task to be the purification of faith from the miscon- 
ceptions of inspiration, and the deliverance of the 
church from the thraldom of stiff formularies. Some 
of their successors held that their labors were only 
philosophical, and hence could not affect theology. 
They all claimed relationship with the Reformers, and 
with the good and great of all ages. Bretschneider 
says that Luther talked of miracles as only fit for the 
ignorant and vulgar, as apples and pears are for children. 

Paulus tries to prove the great Saxon a Rationalist 
by the following circumstance. The Elector of Bran- 
denburg, having asked Luther if it were true that 
he nad said he should not stop unless convinced from 
Scripture, received this reply : " Yes, my lord, unless 
I am convinced by clear and evident reasons ! " It was 
a favorite view of the Rationalists that the Reformation 
had been produced by Reason asserting her rights ; and 
it was then an easy step to take, when they claimed as 
much right to use Reason within the domain of Prot- 
estantism as their fathers possessed when within the 
pale of Catholicism. 

But there were wide points of difference between 
the Reformers and Rationalists. The former would 
return to the spirit and letter of the Word of God, 



32 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



while the latter did not hesitate to depart fi'om both. 
The former accepted the Bible as it is, making Faith 
its interpreter ; the latter would only construe its utter- 
ances as Keason would dictate. 

With the Reformers there was a conflict between 
the Bible and the Roman church, but harmony between 
Reason and the Bible ; hence these two homogeneoua 
elements should be united and the rebellious one for- 
ever discarded. But with the Rationalists there was 
an irreconcilable difference between Reason and Reve- 
lation, and the latter must be moulded into whatever 
shape the former chose to mark out. The Reformers 
celebrated the reunion of both ; but the Rationalists 
never rested so long as there was any hope of putting 
asunder those whom they believed God had never 
joined together. But the later Rationalists, least of all, 
could claim consanguinity with the Reformers. How 
could they who banished miracles from the Scriptures 
and reduced Christ to a much lower personality than 
even the Ebionites declared him to be dare to range 
themselves in the circle of the honored ones who had 
unsealed the long-locked treasures of inspiration, and 
declared that Christ, instead of being an inferior Socra- 
tes, was divine, and the only worthy mediator between 
God and man? After we accept every reasonable 
apology for this destructive skepticism there will still 
be found a large balance against it. There are four con- 
siderations which must always be borne in mind when 
we would decide on the character of any development 
of religious doubt and innovation. 1. The nece^'sity for 
its origin and development ; 2. It^ point of attach ; 3. 
The spirit with which it conducts its warfare ; and 4, 
The success which it achieves. 

Let us see how Rationalism stands the test of these 



INTRODUCTION. 



33 



criteria. It must be confessed tLat the German Prot- 
estant churcli, both the Lutheran and Keformed, called 
loudly for reinvigoration. But it was Faith, not Rea- 
son, that could furnish the remedy. The Pietistic in^ 
fluence was gaining ground and fast achieving a good 
work ; but it was reprobated by the idolaters of Rea- 
son, and the tender plant was touched by the fatal frost. 
Had Pietism, with all its extravagances, been fostered 
by the intellect of the pulpits and universities it would 
bave accomplished the same work for Germany in the 
seventeenth that the Wesleys and Whitefield wrought 
in England in the eighteenth century. There was no 
call for Rationalism, though its literary contributions 
to the church and the times will eventually be highly 
useful ; but they were ill-timed in that season of remark- 
able religious doubt. It was the warmth of the heaii;, 
and not the cold logic of the intellect that could rejuve- 
nate the church. 

Nor do we find the position of Rationalism to be 
any better when we call to mind that it really ac- 
knowledges no hallowed ground. It attacked the most 
endeared doctrines of our faith, and applied its enginery 
to those very parts of our citadel which we would be 
most likely to defend the longest. Had it contented 
itself with the mere discussion of minor points, ^vith 
here and there a quibble about a miracle or a prophecy, 
we could excuse many of its vagaries on the score of 
enthusiasm. But its premiss was, " We \vill accept 
nothing between the two lids of this Book if our Rea- 
son cannot fathom it." Hence, all truth, every book 
of the Bible, even the sacraments of the church, came 
in for their share of discussion and pruning. In this 
respect Rationalism takes rank as one of the most cor- 
rupt tendencies of infidelity which appear anywhere 



34 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



upon the page of ecdesiastical history. But do we find 
its spirit mild and amiable ? Some of the Rationalists 
were naturally men of admirable temperament, but this 
was no effect of their faith. The most lamentable fea- 
ture of this whole system was the ruthless character of 
its warfare. The professions of love for the Scriptures 
and the church, which we so often meet with in the 
writings of the early Rationalistic divines, were soon laid 
aside. The demon of destruction presided over the 
storm. And the work of ruin was rapid, by forced 
marches and through devious paths, — in the true mili- 
tary style. When the hour of fight came there was no 
swerving. Men full of the spirit of a bad cause will 
sometimes fight as valiantly as others for a good one ; 
but it is then that God determines the victor. The 
evangelical Christians of Protestant Germany saw their 
banner captured by their foes. And it was their foes 
who gave the first fire ; but they will not be so fortunate 
in the last encounter. We challenge Deism and even 
Atheism itself, to furnish proof of a more malignant 
antipathy to some of the cardinal doctrines of the 
common faith of Christendom than Rationalism has 
produced in certain of its exponents, and which we 
shall strive to expose in future pages of this work. 
Some of the Rationalists were John-like in all they did, 
save when they discussed the holy truths of inspiration. 
Then they were possessed by the evil spirit. Nowhere 
can we find a more deplorable example of the disastrous 
effects of a false creed on the human character. It is 
an infallible law of our nature that the mind, not less 
than the body, becomes depraved by an impure diet. 
Many persons have been permanently injured by 
reading the Brief e ilher den liationaUsmus, and other 



mTRODUCTIOI^. 



35 



w^orks wMcli Eationalism has published against the 
doctrines of Revelation. 

As far as the completeness and speed of the work 
of Rationalism are concerned we shall find that it ranks 
with the most rapid and destructive errors that have 
ever risen in conflict ^vith the church. Instead of striv- 
ing to build up a land that had so long been cursed 
Avith the blight of Papacy, and had not yet been re- 
deemed a full century, Rationalism brought its poison 
into the university, the pulpit, and the household circle. 
Nor did it cease, as we shall see, until it corrupted 
nearly all the land for several generations. To-day 
the humblest peasant who steps on our shore at Castle 
Garden will stai*e in wonder as you speak of the final 
judgment, the immortality of the soul, and the authen- 
ticity of the Scriptures. Naturalism could not live thus 
long in Italy, nor Deism in England, nor the blind 
Atheism of the Encyclopaedists in France ; neither in 
either land was the work of destruction so complete. 

The church has proved herself able to remove many 
corruptions of her faith ; yet this attack upon her 
faith she has still to vanquish thoroughly. It is not 
works on the evidences of Christianity that she needs 
for the consummation of her great aim ; and we trust 
that, by the divine blessing, the inquiry into the va- 
garies of Reason upon which we are now entering will 
not be without its effect upon the young mind of 
America. Our task is simply to lift the finger of warn- 
ing against the increasing influx of Rationalistic ten- 
dencies from France and England ; which lands had 
fii'st received them from Germany. One of our great dan- 
gers lies in permitting Reason to take our premises and 
build her own conclusions upon them. There is an in- 
timate union between theology and philosophy ; and 



36 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM, 



anything less than the pursuit and cultivation of a 
sound philosophy will endanger our theology. Tenny 
son gives a beautiful word of advice when he says : 



»* Hold thou the good : define it well : 
For fear divine Philosophy 
Should push beyond her mark, and be 
Procuress to the Lords of HelL" 



CHAPTER I. 



CONTROVERSIAL PERIOD SUCCEEDING THE REFORMATION. 

A WORK of such magnitude as the Reformation could 
not easily be consummated in one generation. The 
real severance from the Roman Catholic church was 
effected by Luther and Melanchthon ; but these men 
did not live long enough to give the symmetry and 
polish to their work which it really needed. Unfor- 
tunately, their successors failed to perform the necessary 
task. But lofty as our ideas of the Reformation should 
be, we must not be blind to the fact that German 
Protestantism bears sad evidences of early mismanage- 
ment. To-day, the Sabbath in Prussia, Baden, and all the 
Protestant nationalities is hardly distinguishable from 
that of Bavaria, Austria, Belgium, or France. But a 
few bold words from Martin Luther on the sanctity of 
that day, as the Scriptures declare it, would have made 
it as holy in Germany as it now is in England and the 
United States. Another error, not so great in itself as 
in the evils it induced, was the concessions which Prot- 
estantism granted to the civil magistrate. The friendly 
and heroic part which the Elector of Saxony took in 
the labors of the Reformers, made it a matter of defer- 
ence to vest much ecclesiastical authority in the civil 
head. But when, in later years, this confidence was 
abused, it was not so easy to alter the conditions of 



38 



mSTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



power. We see in this very fact one of the underlying 
causes of the great Rationalistic defection. The indi- 
vidual conscience v^as allowed almost no freedom at 
certain periods. The slightest deviation from the mere 
expression of doctrine was visited with severe penalty. 
Strigel was imprisoned ; Hardenberg was deposed and 
banished ; Peucer doomed to ten years' imprisonment ; 
Cracau put to death on the slightest pretences ; and 
Huber was deposed and expatriated for a mere varia- 
tion in stating the Lutheran doctrine that none are 
excluded from salvation.' 

There were several causes which contributed to 
the intemperate controversies that sprang up immedi- 
ately after the Reformation. The Reformers were in- 
volved in serious disputes among themselves. Had 
Luther and Zwingli never uttered the word Consnhstan- 
tiation they would have gained multitudes to the 
cause they both loved so dearly. Many other ques- 
tions, which unfortunately occupied so much public 
attention, caused minute divisions among those who 
should have stood firm and united in that plastic period 
of the great movement. But it is to the numerous con- 
fessions of faith that we must attribute most of these 
controversies. Perhaps the grave character of the mas- 
ter-points at issue with Romanism demanded these 
closely-succeeding expressions of doctrinal opinion ; but 
we question if the advantage was not much less than 
the outlay. First of all came Melanchthon's celebrated 
Augsburg Confession^ in 1530. The Roman Catholics 
replied by their Confutation^ which, in turn, was an- 
swered by Melanchthon in the Apology of the Confes- 
sion, Luther followed in 1536-37 with his Articles 
of Smalcald^ and still later by his two Catechisms. In 

^ Pusey, Historical Inquiry^ pp. 16, 17. 



CONTROVEESIAL PEEIOD. 



39 



1577 came tlie Formula Concordim^ and in 1580 tlie 
symbolical canon entitled lAher Concordice. 

Amid this mass of doctrinal opinion in whicli many 
conflicting points were easy enougli to find, it was no 
small task to know wkat to accept. Tke air was filled 
mtk the sounds of strife. Those who had fought so 
steadfastly against Papacy were now turning their 
weapons in deadly strife against each other. 

The very names by which Church History has 
recorded the memory of these strifes indicate the real 
littleness of many of the points in question. The An- 
tinomian Controversy originated with John Agricola 
during Luther's life-time. Agricola, in many severe 
expressions, contended against the utility of the Law ; 
though Mosheim thinks he intended to say nothing 
more than that the ten laws of Moses were intended 
chiefly for the Jews, and that Christians are warranted 
in laying them aside. The Adiwphoristic Controversy 
was caused by the diflference between the moderate views 
of Melanchthon and the more rigid doctrines of the 
orthodox Lutherans. We have next the controversy 
between George Major and Nicolas Amsdorf, as to 
whether good works are necessary to salvation, or 
whether they possess a dangerous tendency. The 
Synergistic Controversy considered the relations of 
divine grace and human liberty. The dispute between 
Victorin Strigel and Matthias Flacius was on the na- 
ture of Original Sin. Then we have the Osiandric 
Controversy J on the relation of justification to sanctifi- 
cation; and the Crypto- Calvinistic Controversy^ con- 
cerning the Lord's Supper, which extended through the 
Palatinate to Bremen and through Saxony. The 
Formula Concordice thus sums up the Lutheran contro- 
versies : 1. Against the Antinomians insisting on the 



40 



HISTOKY OF RATIOi^ALISM. 



preaching of tlie law. 2. Justification as a declarative 
act, agaiDSt Osiander ; good works are its fruits, 3. 
Synergism is disavowed, but tlie difficulty left indefini te. 
4. Adiaphora are admitted, but in times of trial de- 
clared to be important. 5. Consubstantiation, and 
ubiquity of Christ's body. 

The Reformed or Calvinistic church was likewise 
engaged in doctrinal disputation, but there was more 
internal unity. Hence, while Calvinism was rooting 
itself in England, Scotland, and Holland, Lutheranism 
was spending itself in internal strife. 

The Syncretistic Oontroversy was remarkable on 
account of the great men who engaged in it and the 
noble purpose which caused it. It arose from an at- 
tempt to reconcile all the disputants under the Apostles' 
Creed. 

George Calixtus was the chief actor in the move- 
ment. He was a most cultivated theologian. But, like 
so many of his fellow countrymen, whose merits have 
not yet been appreciated by the English-speaking people, 
he is little known to our readers of ecclesiastical his- 
tory. He applied himself first to the study of the 
Church Fathers, poring over their voluminous produc- 
tions with all the zeal of an enthusiast. He was eager 
to gain an insight into contemporaneous theology as it 
was believed and practised by all the sects. He con- 
cluded that he could gain his object only by travel and 
personal observation. Consequently, he commenced a 
tour through Belgium, England, France, and various 
parts of Germany. Nor did he hasten from one place 
to another, but continued a length of time, in order to 
become imbued with the local spirit, make the ac- 
quaintance of the most illustrious men, hold conversa- 
tions with them, and commit his thoughts to writing. 



GEOKGE CALIXTUS. 



41 



On his return he commenced the labors of a professor 
of theology at Helmstadt. Thus, few men ever brought 
to their aid more extensive acquirements than Calixtus. 
Besides the advantages he derived from his travels, he 
was possessed of strong and brilliant natural talents. 
He was bold and striking in his style ; had great 
originality of conception, and remarkable logical acute- 
ness. Yet he received but little justice from his gener- 
ation ; for almost everything he wrote was made the 
theme of mad disputes and violent abuse. 

The controversies of the period made a profound 
unpression on the mind of Calixtus. The anger and 
personality with which they were conducted were 
sufficient proof to him of the little service they were 
able to contribute to either the improvement of 
theology or the religious growth of the people. To 
reconcile the various sects was the dream of his whole 
life. Referring to his early desires in this direction, he 
thus wrote in later years : " I was cogitating methods, 
even at that early age, for mitigating the feuds and dis- 
sensions of Christians. . . . One thing, however, 
is clear, that if men's minds were not bound by preju- 
dices, they would remit a great deal of rigor." ^ Those 
were sincere words, too, which he said on beholding 
the rancor of sectarianism : " If I may but help towards 
the healing of our schisms, I will shrink fi'om no cares 
and no night-watchings ; no effort and no dangers ; 

. nay, I will never spare either my life or my 
blood, if so be I may purchase the peace of the church. 
For nothing can ever be laid upon me so heavy but 
that I would undertake it, not only with readiness, but 
also with gladness." The abuses of preaching, then 
prevalent, were also a theme of intense sorrow to him. 

^ Reaponmm Moguntinis Theologis, p. 129. 



42 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



What some of them were may be easily gathered from 
a passage in his course of lectures on the Four Evangel- 
ists to the students of Helmstadt. " It is evident," he 
says, "that in every interpretation the chief heed is to be 
given to the literal sense. In every address to the 
people this must be made the principal point — so to 
explain the text of Scripture that men may understand 
what the Holy Spirit chiefly and primarily intends to 
teach by it. Inasmuch, too, as the language is ad- 
dressed to the people, it is the part of prudence to de- 
cide what words may suit their capacity. We should 
strive to state the fact on the doctrine itself in words as 
fitting and simple as possible, and (omitting all con- 
troversial subtleties) to prove the truth as far as it is 
necessary for salvation to be known, by a few words 
of Scripture : — few, that they may not escape the 
memory of the hearers ; evident and convincing, lest the 
proofs seem doubtful, and the minds of the more intelli- 
gent be left in suspense and be disturbed to their very 
exceeding harm. The words of the Fathers (if used by 
way of evidence) should be used sparingly and with 
caution ; lest the ignorant should confound the Apostles 
and Prophets with the Fathers, and persuade themselves 
that all have equal authority. For it is to be borne 
in mind that sermons are preached not so much for the 
benefit of the learned as for the sake of the people 
generally ; that they may be rightly instructed in the 
doctrine of salvation and of Christian morals. In the 
meantime we must do our best to satisfy all; that the 
simple be not left without needful teaching ; the more 
acute find no want of force and argument ; nor the 
learned charge the preacher with a pride of knowledge 
foreign to the occasion and not always thorough." * 

^ Cone. Evang.^ in Henke, vol. I. p. 274, note. 



PRINCIPLES OF CALLXTUS. 43 

In his first controversial work, Chief Points of the 
Christian Religion^ Calixtus gave expression to many 
solid thoughts, which subsequently produced an abun- 
dant harvest. His TJieological Apparatus was written 
for young ministers, and designed to meet the imme- 
diate necessities of the times. But it is to his great 
work, the Desire and Effort for Ecclesiastical Concord^ 
that we must turn to find the true man spending his 
greatest power toward the unification of Christians. 
In teiTus of communion, he contends, we must distin- 
guish between what is, and what is not, essential to 
salvation. In all that relates to the Christian mysteries 
we must content ourselves with the quod and not dis- 
pute about the quo modo. In stating these mysteries 
we should use the simplest language. There is a nat- 
ural brotherhood of men, and this should bind them 
together in matters of religion. We must love all 
men, even idolaters, in order to save them. The Jews 
and Mohammedans stand nearer to us than they, and 
we should cherish affection also for them. Those who 
are most closely united to us are all who believe that 
they can be saved only by the merits of Christ. All 
who thus recognize the saving power of Christ are 
members of his body, brothers and sisters with him. 
"We should live, therefore, as members of one family, 
though adhering to different sects. 

But we must not be neutral. Every one should 
join the church to which his own conscientious convic- 
tions would lead him. Yet when we do this, we must 
love all who think differently. Those who have been 
martyrs for the Christian faith were in the right path ; 
we cannot do better than to follow them in love and 
doctrine. The outpouring of the Spirit would be 



44 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



meagre indeed if the churcli existed for the stringent 
Lutherans alone.^ 

But the intense desire of Calixtus to unite the 
various Christian bodies was poorly rewarded by the 
sympathy of his contemporaries. He was charged with 
religious indifference because he looked with mildness 
on those who differed from him. Though a strict 
Lutheran, he was accused of secretly favoring the Ke- 
formed church ; and Arianism and Judaism were im- 
puted to him, because he thought that the doctrine of 1 
the Trinity was not revealed with equal clearness in the 
Old and New Testaments ! When he affirmed that the 
epithets Lutheran, Reformed, and Romanist should not 
destroy the idea of Christian in each, he was foully vili- 
fied for opening the gate of heaven to the abandoned 
of all the earth. A friendly man said that he was " a 
good and venerable theologian " and for this utterance 
the offender was subjected to a heavy fine. The friends 
of Calixtus were termed by one individual " blood- 
hounds and perjurers." Another declared that " he 
tuned his lyre to Judaizers and Arianizers and Ro- 
manizers and Calvinizers, and that he showed a spirit 
so coarse and shameless that never the like had been 
before." Still another compared him to Julian the 
Apostate. | 

But previous controversies and the ever-increasing 
points of divergence had so estranged the different 
churches that the labors of Calixtus to unite them 
proved unavailing. His influence was lessened because 
of the disputes into which his bold undertaking led ' 
him. But he quickened national thought, turned the- 
ologians to looking deeper into the Scriptures than 
had been the practice since the Reformation, and estab- 

^ Bowding, Life and Correspondence of Calixtus^ pp. 313-315. I 



PEOTESTAOTISM ENDAIfQEEED. 



45 



lished tlie difference between the essential and non- 
essential in matters of faith. The cause of his failure 
to unite the discordant church was his fearless attack 
on popular error. But his disappointment detracts 
nothing from the grandeur of his work ; and his name 
is one which will not be denied its meed of praise when 
theological peace is once more restored to Germany. 
No generation can duly value a character whose life 
is not in consonance with the prevailing spirit of that 
generation. As the military hero must not expect his 
greenest laurels in time of peace, and as the sage must 
not dream of praise in an uncultivated period, so must 
such men as George Galixtus wait for a coming day 
whose untainted atmosphere will be in harmony with 
their own pure life and thoughts. 

The spirituality of the German church having 
suffered materially from the controversies of which we 
have spoken, the beneficial results of the Eeformation 
were greatly endangered by them. The German version 
of the Bible had been an incalculable blessing to 
the masses ; and the commentaries written by the 
Reformers and their immediate successors gave prom- 
ise of a wide-spread scriptural knowledge. But 
the religious disputes distracted the mind from this 
necessary department of thought, and neutralized much 
of the good which would otherwise have been lasting. 
The danger in which the Protestant church now stood 
was great. Sectarian strife, formalism, neglect of the 
high functions of the pastorate, and other flagrant evils 
of the day, made the devout and far-seeing tremble for 
the cause which had engaged the great minds of the 
Reformation era. What could be done ? A steady and 
gigantic effort was necessary to be made or the great 
Reformation would die by its own hand. Happily 



46 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



there were men, though somewhat removed at fii'st from 
public observation, whom God was intending to employ 
as conservative agents. Often in the history of the 
church, when there has been no prospect of success and 
progress, and when the votaries of error seemed every- 
where triumphant, God was secretly preparing the in- 
strumentality which, Joseph-like, would in due time 
perform the work of preservation and restoration. 
There have been pessimists who were ever ready to 
cry : " Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged 
down thine altars ; and I am left alone, and they seek 
my life." But when the hour of crisis came, God's an- 
swer was heard : " I have reserved to myself seven 
thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." 
This was true at the present period, for there were a 
few men whose services were destined to be of great 
value to the Protestantism of Europe. 

We mention first of all the prince of mystics, Jacob 
Boehme, shoemaker of Gorlitz. Gieseler chooses to 
stigmatize him with " contempt of all Christianity of 
the letter and of all scientific theology ; " but men can 
only be measured by the standard of their age. Did 
they serve their generation well ? If so, we grant them 
all honor for their work. Let Boehme be tested by 
this method, and we do not fear the result. We are 
not unmindful of many of his absui'd notions, of the 
fanaticism of his followers — for which he is not in the 
least chargeable — and of the many extravagances scat- 
tered through his twenty-eight treatises. But that he 
intended well, served his church and his Master, led 
thousands to self-examination, taught his nation that 
controversy was not the path to success or immortality, 
his whole career proves beyond confutation. 

His life, from beginning to end, is a marvel. He 



BOEHME AT WORK. 



47 



{vas born of poor peasant parentage in 1575 ; and, after 
being taught to read and write, was apprenticed to 
a shoemaker. His time was divided between reading 
his Bible, going to church, making shoes, and taking 
care of the cow. But in that boy's heart there were 
as deep a conscientiousness, imperturbable patience, 
purity of soul, and love of God as can be found in a 
like period of spiritual dearth. Having reproved his 
master one day, he was dispatched on his apprentice- 
pilgrimage somewhat sooner than he had anticipated. 
It has been truthfully said of him that his characteristic 
lay in his pneumatic realism. His was ecstacy of the 
loftiest type ; but with him it was something almost 
tangible, real, and akin to actual life. The sympathetic 
and lamented Vaughan thus fancies him: "Behold him 
early in his study, with bolted door. The boy must 
see to the shop to-day, no sublunary care of awl or 
leather, customers and groschen, must check the rushing 
flood of thought. The sunshine streams in emblem, to 
his high-raised phantasy, of a more glorious light. As 
he writes, the thin cheeks are flushed, the gray eye 
kindles, the whole frame is damp, and trembling with 
excitement. Sheet after sheet is covered. The head- 
long pen, too precipitate for caligraphy, for punctuation, 
for spelling, for syntax, dashes on. The lines which 
darken down the waiting page are, to the writer, fur- 
rows, into which heaven is raining a driven shower of 
celestial seed. On the chapters thus fiercely written the 
eye of the modern student rests, cool and critical, wearily 
scanning paragraphs, digressive as Juliet's nurse, and 
protesting, with contracting eyebrow, that this easy 
writing is abominably hard to read." ^ 

He was four times in ecstacy. He writes of him- 

^ Houra with the Mystics^ vol. 2, p. 67. 



48 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



self : " I have never desired to know anything of divine 
mystery ; much less have I wished to seek or find it 
I sought only the heart of Jesus Christ, that there 
I might hide myself from the anger of God and the 
grasp of the devil. And I have besought God to grant 
me his grace and Holy Spirit, that he would lead me 
and take from me everything that would tend to 
alienate me from him ; that I might lose my own will 
in his, and that I might be his child in his son Jesus 
Christ. While in this earnest seeking and longing, the 
door has opened before me, so that I have seen and 
learned more in a quarter of an hour than I could have 
gained in many years at great schools. . . . When 
I think why it is that I write as I do, I learn that my 
spirit is set on fire of this spirit about which I write. 
If I would set down other things, I cannot do it : a 
living fire seems to be kindled up within me. I have 
prayed God many hundreds of times, weeping, that if 
my knowledge did not contribute to his honor and the 
improvement of my brethren he would take it away 
from me, and hold me only in his love. But I found 
that my weeping only made the inner fire bum all the 
more ; and it has been in such ecstacy and knowledge 
that I have composed my works." 

The Aurora was his greatest production. His ex- 
treme modesty forbade the publication of it ; and it 
was first discovered accidentally in manuscript by a 
nobleman who was visiting him. Of the literary char- 
acter of his works Schlegel says ; " If we consider him 
merely as a poet, and in comparison with other Chiis- 
tian poets who have attempted the same supernatural 
themes — such as Klopstock, Milton, or even Dante — 
we shall find that in fulness of emotion and depth of 
imagination he almost surpasses them. And in poetic 



JOHN AENDT. 



49 



expression and single beauties lie does not stand a whit 
behind them. The great intellectual wealth of the 
German language has rarely been revealed to such an 
extent in any age as in this writer. His power of 
imagery flowed from an inexhaustible fountain." His 
last words declared the inward life of the man, " O Lord 
of Sabaoth, save me according to thy pleasure ! O thou 
crucified Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, and 
take me to thy kingdom ! Now I am going into 
Paradise ! " 

John Arndt was not the subtle mystic that Boehme 
was, and his writings are subjected to fewer misappre- 
hensions. The service he rendered the church and 
the cause of truth was important ; and his influence is 
still felt upon the practical life of the German people. 
While yet young he no sooner became awakened to his 
spiritual condition then he saw the great religious de- 
fects of his day. He first yielded to the prevalent pas- 
sion for the study of chemistry and medicine ; but, 
through a severe illness, he was subsequently led to 
give himself to the service of God. But few works 
have obtained the celebrity which his True Okristianity 
has enjoyed, not only while its author lived, but at 
every period since that time. He was induced to write 
it on account of the controversial and formal spirit 
which petrified the church. In a letter to Duke Au- 
gustus, in 1621, he thus explained his motives : " I have 
first endeavored to withdraw the minds of students and 
preachers from this disputation and contentious theol- 
ogy which threatens to bring upon us once more the 
evil of a scholastic theology. Another reason that has 
impelled me to this course is my strong desire to incline 
dead Christians to become fruitful. A third one is to 
lead people from the study of human theory and science 



50 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



to the real exercise of faith and devotion. A fourth 
reason is to show what that true Christian life is which 
harmonizes with vital faith — and what that is which 
Paul raeant when he said, ' I live; yet not I, but Christ 
liveth in me.' " 

Immediately after the publication of the li'ue 
Christianity it found a hearty welcome. The learned 
and ignorant took equal pleasure in its living thoughts. 
Next to the Bible and Kempis' Imitation of Christ, it 
has been cii-culated more widely on the Continent than 
any other book. It was translated into all the Eu- 
ropean languages, and missionaries rendered it into 
heathen tongues. The Eoman Catholics received it, 
and claimed it as one of their treasures. When Pro- 
fessor Anton visited the Jesuit Library at Madrid, in 
1687, he inquired for the best ascetical writer. The 
librarian produced a copy of Arndt's True C/i/ristianity, 
which, though without preface or introduction, had this 
simple expression on the first page : " This hook is more 
edifying than all others^ 

The spirit with which Arndt wrote all his works was 
calm and heavenly. He possessed that beautiful Mo- 
ravian type of character which defied persecution by 
its submission, love, tenderness, and energy. In referring 
to his many enemies he wrote on one occasion, " I am 
delighted to suffer, and I would endure a thousand 
times more, sooner than bury my talent." He was 
somewhat ascetical in temperament, but he differed from 
all that class of thinkers by the clearness of his appre- 
ciation of the wants of his time and his unwearied ef- 
forts to meet them successfully. He did not escape 
the censure of mysticism ; for that was more than 
any devout spirit in that age could expect. Some of 
the most learned took umbrage at his ardent senti- 



JOHN GERHARD. 



51 



ments and bitter complaint at the impiety of his 
times. The opposition to him was well organized, and 
continued long after his death. Even at the end of 
the seventeenth century we find various writers re- 
plying to his celebrated work. But all the blows of 
his adversaries have only tended to deepen the love of 
the people for his name and writings. It is not an un- 
frequent occurrence for minds in Germany, even at 
the present day, to be led to accept the truths of the 
Gospel by the reading of the True Christianity, What 
Thomas a Kempis was to the pre-Refor matron age, 
Fenelon to France, and Jeremy Taylor to England, 
John Arndt has been to the Protestant countries of the 
Continent for the last three centuries. Superintend- 
ent Wagner only gave expression to the world's real 
conviction when he wrote of him: " Vir placidus^ can- 
didus^ plus et doctusP 

A personal friend and spiritual son of Arndt, John 
Gerhard, followed closely in his footsteps. He was 
possessed of the same general characteristics which 
we have traced in connection with the two preceding 
names. His love was boundless, his spirit unruffled, his 
piety deep and lasting. He was more serviceable in 
some respects to the interests of the orthodox church 
than any other theologian of that time. Like Arndt 
he had been inclined to the study of medicine, but a 
dangerous sickness turned his mind to religious contem- 
plation and to the study of theology. His mental ca- 
pacities had been cast in a great mould. He grasped 
whatever he undertook with gigantic comprehension. 
His attainments were so rapid that at the age of 
twenty-four he received the degree of doctor of di- 
vinity ; and, somewhat later, was the most famous and 
admired of all the professors of the university of 



52 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



Jena. His influence was such that princes placed 
themselves before him for his counsel, and the highest 
ecclesiastical tribunals deemed themselves honored in 
receiving a share of his attention. His works embrace 
the departments of exegesis, doctrine, and practical re- 
ligion. 

But it was chiefly the two former branches of the- 
ology that engaged his attention. In his Exegetical 
Mcplication of Po/i'ticula/r Passages he accomplished an 
important service for the church. He introduced all 
the leading doctrines of inspiration into this work, and 
discussed the merits of contemporary controversy in 
connection with them. He explained those almost in- 
definable terms which had been so variously employed 
by the schoolmen, and summed up the literature on the 
points in question. His style was prolix but his con- 
elusions carried great weight with them. As a speci- 
men of his tedious method, he begins his discussion of 
original sin with the questions, " Is there such a thing 
as original sin ? Then, what is it? What is its sub- 
ject ? How is it continued ? " Many other inquiries 
are made in the same manner, but it is only after a hun- 
dred pages have been passed over that he gives his own 
definition of it. But we should not smile at such lati- 
tude of style when we remember the literary standard 
of those times. The German language was then in its 
plastic state ; and by far the greater portion of writers 
had been much more interested in gaining points than 
rounding periods. It is almost a hopeless task to wade 
through the ridiculously lengthy terms of the seven- 
teenth century. But it may be said, in their defenec, 
that the method of verbose composition was not with- 
out some appearance of utility. The intelligence of the 
reader could not be relied upon to such an extent as 



ANDKEA. 



58 



now, and the eager eyes of so many opponents made it 
necessary to guard every word of importance with a 
wall of sentences. 

We have now to mention a fourth actor in the great 
drama of these dangerous times, John Valentine Andrea. 
His mind was not of the serious tone that marked the 
other writers of whom we have spoken. That he look- 
ed deeply, calmly, and wisely into the surrounding 
evils no one can doubt. Every work he wrote estab- 
lished this fact. But the method which he adopted to 
cure them was of a totally different order from that 
employed by others. His personal history bears all the 
evidences of romance. He was the son of a poor 
widow, who, having spent all her property to give him 
an education, found her boy at the conclusion of his 
studies desirous of making the usual academic tour. 
She has but a pittance left, so she puts into his hand 
twelve kreutzer, and a rusty old coin, as a pocketpiece. 
Her eyes follow him until they are blinded in a flood of 
tears. Years pass on and Valentine comes home, hav- 
ing travelled, by dint of self-denial and perseverance^ 
over the most interesting portions of the Continent* 
He returns to the fatherland and settles quietly down 
as an orthodox Lutheran pastor. 

It is now that the evils of his generation loom up 
before him in terrible blackness. He attacks them 
by satire. He sits down and writes a little book, ded- 
icated to all the great men of Europe, and entitled^ 
TTie Discovery of the Brotherhood of the HonoraMe 
Order of the Holy Gross, This work aims to show that 
there had once lived a certain Christian Rosenkranz. 
He was a man of remarkable learning, and communi- 
cated his knowledge to eight disciples, who lived with 
him, in a house called the Temple of the Holy Ghost. 



64 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



This building has come to light, and behold the uncor- 
rupted body of Eosenkranz, who has been dead a hun- 
dred and twenty years ! The various disciples ^hom 
he left, and who are scattered throughout Germany; 
claim to be true Protestants, and call upon all men to 
help them in their efforts to promote learning and re- 
ligion. They possess great secrets and the world ought 
to know them. They are perfectly at home in bottling 
the elixir of life, and have been in possession of the 
philosopher's stone a long time. Their great object 
is to benefit their fellow creatures. Who will follow 
them? 

Such was the burden of Andrea's little book. The 
consequence was, it set all Germany on fire. People 
never dreamed for a moment that it was a burlesque on 
the times. Thousands left their labor to follow the ad- 
vice of the earnest disciples of Rosenkranz. On seeing 
that he had caused some mischief, Andrea wrote book 
after book affirming that his previous one on Christian 
Rosenkranz was a pure fiction intended to teach a use- 
ful lesson. But nobody believed him ; the people were 
sure that they could not be so sadly deceived. His 
first work was the only one that was heartily received ; 
and multitudes ran mad after the fabulous knowledge 
of the famous master and his imaginary disciples. But 
when the land awoke to the real idea of Andrea, the 
• reaction was tremendous. Perhaps no satire, not even 
the Laus Stultitice of Erasmus, created such a fury of 
excitement as this ; seldom has one been followed with 
more astounding and beneficial results. We say henefi- 
cial from purpose ; for Andrea succeeded in attracting 
the popular mind from its old habits of controversy. 
This was his great service. As a man he was of nnex 
ceptionable life and ardent sympathies. He passed 



PREPAKATORY WORKERS. 



55 



peacefully to his rest after uttering the words, " It is 
our joy that our names are written in the Book of Life." 

Thus were these devoted men performing their 
groat mission of improving the life of the Church. We 
shall soon see how low the current of that life was, and 
how great the burden placed upon them. Each one 
had his special endowment, and was eminently quali- 
fied to contribute to a more healthy religious tone 
throughout the Protestant lands. But, after all, their 
work was only preparative. The culmination of their 
labors was, in later yeai's, the great Pietistic Reform ; 
and they marked out the path along which Spener 
subsequently passed. Theirs was a great part in the 
drama of providence ; but their achievements would 
have accomplished no permanent advantage had they 
not been succeeded by the triumphs of the Father of 
Pietism. It has sometimes been a noticeable part of the 
divine plan in our great struggles with the powers of 
darkness, that, when the heroes of truth fall at their 
post, the contest does not need to rage long before 
others, with hearts of equal fervor and weapons more 
brightly polished, take their places in the advancing 
lines. What wonder, then, that, by and by, the moun- 
tains echo back the shouts of victory ! 



CHAPTER II. 



RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCH AT 
THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA— 1648. 

Theological strife was the precursor of the all-de- 
vastating Thirty Years' War. The forces had been long 
at work before the fearful carnage began. The princi- 
ples involved were of such moment that, whatever 
power took part in the struggle, did so with all the 
energy with which it was endowed. The Emperor Ru- 
dolph 11. had, in 1609, guaranteed to Bohemia the lib- 
erty of Protestantism, but his successor, Matthias, vio- 
lated the pledge by preventing the erection of a Protest- 
ant church edifice. The imperial councillors were cast 
out of the window ; the priests driven off ; and the 
Elector Frederick V. of the Palatinate chosen King of 
Bohemia. But the Protestants were overcome. Ferdi- 
nand II. tore up the imperial pledge ; led back the 
priests into authority, and expelled the Protestant clergy. 
Certain concessions having been previously made to the 
Protestants, Ferdinand 11. issued in 1629 his infamous 
Edict of Meetitution^ by which the Protestants were to 
deliver up all the monasteries confiscated after the 
Treaty of Passau. Calvinists were excluded from the 
Peace ; and the Catholic States were granted uncondi- 
tional liberty to suppress Protestantism in their heredi- 
tary countries.^ The fearful carnage commenced in bit- 

^ Kurtz, Church History, voL 11, p. 177. 



THIRTY YEAES' WAR. 



57 



ter earnestness. No war was ever carried on with more 
desperation ; none can be found more repulsive in bru- 
tality, or more beautiful in fortitude and sublime in 
bravery. Great sanguinary contests often receive tbeir 
appellation from the influences that produce them, or the 
nations conducting them ; but this one, extending from 
1618 to 1648, combined all these elements to such an 
extent that the historian finds it most convenient to de- 
nominate it by the period of its duration. It was the 
bloody mould in which the continent of Europe received 
its modern shape. It extended, with but slight excep- 
tions, over the entire extent of Germany. Some por- 
tions of that singularly picturesque country were per- 
mitted to hope for immunity from its devastations ; but, 
by and by, they too were visited ; and all that re- 
mained were a decimated population and smoking 
ruins. 

Pastoral work was necessarily neglected. Large 
sections of the country were deprived of all spiritual 
cultivation and oversight. The children were deprived 
of both their natural protectors and those guardians 
whom the church had provided for them. Out of ten 
hundred and forty-six pastors in Wiirtemberg, for ex- 
ample, only three hundred and thirty were left by the 
ravages of war. Food could hardly be provided for the 
Seminary students, who were very few ; for nearly all 
the young men had been compelled to yield to the re- 
peated conscriptions. The princes themselves were in 
many cases driven from their jurisdiction; and when the 
prince was gone the church was usually disorganized. 
Duke Eberhard of Wiirtemberg and many of the 
Rhenish rulers were compelled to seek an asylum in 
Strasbui'g. The Margrave of Baden-Durlach was a ref- 



58 



mSTOEY or RATIONALISM. 



ugee to Switzerland; Dukes Adolph Frederic 1. and 
John II. of Mecklenburg fled to Liibeck.^ 

The desolation caused by this protracted war bafla.es 
all description. No writer has been competent for it. 
Scliiller found it a task to which even his fer\rid 
imagination and glowing diction could not measure. 
Wherever it went it left destruction in its path. The 
population of Bohemia was reduced from three millions 
to seven hundred and eighty thousand. Only a fiftieth 
part of the inhabitants of the Ehine-lands were lefh 
alive. Saxony lost nine hundred thousand of her citi- 
zens within the brief space of two years. The city of 
Augsburg could number only eighteen thousand out of 
her enterprising population of eighty thousand. In 
1646 alone, Bavaria saw more than one hundred of her 
thriving towns laid in ashes; while little Hesse lost 
seventeen cities, forty-seven castles, and four hundred 
towns. 

The cruelty which characterized some of the partici- 
pants in this war may be conceived from the awful scene 
of the siege of Magdeburg ; a picture for which, says 
Schiller, " History has no speech, and Poetry no pencil." 
" Neither childhood, nor age," another author affirms, 
" nor sex, nor rank, nor beauty were able to disafm the 
conqueror's wrath. Wives were mishandled in the arms 
of their husbands, daughters at the feet of their fathers. 
Women were found beheaded in a church, whilst the 
troopers amused themselves by throwing infants into 
the flames, or by spearing sucklings at their mothers' 
breasts. ' Come again in an hour,' was Tilly's only re- 
ply when some of his officers (utterly horrified at what 

* Tholuck, Dm Kirchliche Leben des Siebzehnten Jahrhunderts, ErsU 
Ahtheilung. For much information in the present chapter we are greatly 
indebted to this valuable repository. 



THIRTY YEAES' WAR, 



59 



they saw) besought him to put a hand upon this bath of 
blood : — * Come again in an hour and I will see what I 
can do. The soldier must have something for his labor 
and risk.' With unchecked fury did these horrors go 
forward, till smoke and flame set bounds to plunder. 
The city had been fired in several places ; and a gale 
spread the flames with rampant speed. In less than 
twelve hours the town lay in ashes ; two churches, and 
some few huts excepted. Scarcely had the rage of the 
fire slackened, when the troops returned again to grope 
for plunder. Horrible was the scene which now pre- 
sented itself. Living men crept out from under 
corpses ; lost children, shrieking, sought their parents ; 
infants were sucking the dead breasts of their mothers. 
More than six thousand bodies were thrown into the 
Elbe, before the streets could be made passable ; whilst 
an infinitely larger number were consumed by the fire. 
Thirty thousand persons are supposed to have per- 
ished." ^ 

At the outset of the war, and at many times during 
its continuance, the Protestants fought with but little 
apparent prospect of success. But their heroic zeal con- 
tinued unabated until it was crowned with triumph. 
The peace of Westphalia, which concluded the protract- 
ed struggle, secured the abolition of the oppressive De- 
cree of 1635; granted legal rights to the Protestant 
churches; established Lutheranism in Central Germany, 
Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Livonia ; recognized 
the Swiss and Dutch Republics ; and, under certain con- 
ditions, allowed future changes of religion by princes 
and people.^ 

The religious effect of the first few years of this san- 

* Dowding, Life arid Correspondence of Calixtus^ pp. 153, 15.4:. 

* E. B. Smithy D, i>., History of Church of Christ in Chronological 
Tables, pp. 56-61. 



60 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



guinaiy period was beneficial. There were indications 
of more seriousness in common life, and a deeper love 
of truth among the thinking circles. The people mani- 
fested a disposition to trust in the Divine arm for de- 
liverance from their sorrows ; and this new confidence 
developed itself particularly in benefactions for the im- 
poverished and young. But as the war progressed and 
peace seemed farther off with every new year, the heaii; 
of the people relaxed into coldness, distrust, and des- 
peration. Thus, dark as was the picture of religious 
life before the outbreak of hostilities, it was darker still 
during their progress and at their close. So literally 
was this the case that Kahnis declares its termination to 
have been the beginning of the reign of secularism. 
He says: "Up to the period of the Thirty Years' War 
religion was the chief moving power of the time. The 
question regarding the confession prevailed over every- 
thing, and even secular questions, that they might ex- 
cite interest and be carried, were compelled to clothe 
themselves in the garb of religion. But the result of 
the Thirty Years' War was indifference, not only to the 
confession, but to religion in general. Ever since that 
period secular interests decidedly occupy the foreground, 
and the leading power of Europe is France." ^ 

It shall now be our business to inquire into that 
dwarfed vitality which Kahnis elevates so high as to de- 
nominate " religion." We believe that, in all the course 
of ecclesiastical history on the Continent, no period of 
equal intelligence is marked by the same degree of re- 
ligious coldness and petrifaction. Theology was a spe- 
cial sufferer. The most useful departments were neg- 
lected, while the least essential were raised to superla- 
tive importance. Andrea places the following language 

* History of German Protestantism^ p. 21. 



ECCLESIASTICAL DECLENSION. 



61 



on the neglect of the study of church history in the 
mouth of Truth : History, since she is exiled with me, 
readily consents to he silent and laughs at the expe- 
rience of those who, because they can but relate their 
exploits from the A. B. C. school to the Professor's chair, 
that is, from the rod to the sceptre, dream that they are 
in possession of a compendium of the whole world. 
Hence their city is to them a compendium of the world, 
their class book a library, their school a monarchy, their 
doctor's cap a diadem, their rod of office a lictor's staff, 
each scholastic rule an anathema : in short everything 
appears to them exaggerated. Oh ! the hapless human 
learning that is shut up in these scholastic Athens, that 
whatever offences may everywhere besides be committed 
by ignorance, all the severest punishments are in store 
for these alone to overwhelm it." 

Again, in his Ghristiano^olis^ or ideal Christian state, 
he says : " Since the inhabitants of Christianopolis value 
the church above everything else in this world, they are 
occupied in her history more than in any other. For since 
this is the ark which contains those who are to be saved, 
they prefer to busy themselves about it more than about 
all the waters of the deluge. They relate then by what 
immense mercy of God this soul flock was brought to- 
gether, received into covenant, formed by laws enforced 
by his word; by what weak instruments it was ex- 
tended, by what mighty engines attacked, by what man- 
ifest aid defended ; what blood and prayers its safety 
had cost ; amid what anger of Satan the standard of 
the Cross triumphed ; how easily the tares spring up ; 
how often its light is contracted to a narrow space ; what 
great eclipses, and how very great and thick an one it 
suffered under Antichrist ; how it has sometimes emerged 
from desperate circumstances, and especially in this our 

6 



()2 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



age under the mighty Luther ; with what defilement and 
spots it is often stained ; how much it is conversant with 
the flesh. Many other such things they have in store ; 
as also its periodical changes, and the harmonious vicis- 
situdes of its seasons. They diligently impress them 
on the youth that they may learn to trust in God, to 
mistrust the flesh, to despise the threats of the world, to 
endure the darkness of this age. And this is right? 
however others may not even dissemble their neglect of 
ecclesiastical history ; for how little any knowledge of 
it is now required even from ecclesiastics, or how, where 
it is found, it is sold cheap in comparison with a syllo- 
gism or two — it does not belong to this place to discuss- 
more at length." 

The existing state of impiety may be inferred from 
the low estimate of childhood. The Roman Catholic 
Church of that day was not so careful of the indoctri- 
nation of the young as it is at the present time. 
Mathesius says that in the twenty-five yeai's he spent 
within its fold he had seen no case in which the 
catechism had been elucidated, and that he had not once 
heard it explained from the pulpit. Luther took great 
pains to have children and the lowest classes ti-ained in 
the elements of religious knowledge. His express lan- 
guage, in reference to the catechetical instruction of the 
young and ignorant was, "It is not merely enough that 
they should be taught and counselled, but care must be 
taken that, in the answers returned, every sentence 
must be evidently understood." But like so many other 
lessons of the great Reformer, this was not remembered 
by his successors ; and in course of time all that the 
youth and laboring classes could boast in favor of their 
doctrinal training was a smattering of contemporary 
controversy. There were sermons and expository leo- 



io:glect of the youjstg. 



63 



tares intended for children ; but they wei-e often at unsea- 
sonable hours, and of such insufferable dryness as to tax 
the mind and patience of maturity. A certain author, 
in a catalogue of this class of literature, enumerates 
fifteen hundred and ninety catechetical sermons for the 
young that were directed solely against the Calvinists ! 

No one is better able to inform us, however, of the 
low state of religious training than he who labored 
most for its improvement. Spener's language, though 
written in reference to the melancholy prostration 
which his own eyes beheld, applies equally well to the 
very time of which we speak : 

If one were to say that catechizing and the Chris- 
tian instruction of youth is one of the principal, most 
important, and most necessary of our duties, and not 
of less value than preaching, would he not be contra- 
dicted or even laughed at by many uninstructed preach- 
ers, or by others ignorant of their duty, who seek only 
their own honor ; as if such care were too small and 
contemptible for an office instituted for more important 
employment ? Yet such is but the real truth. Mean- 
time this duty is by many considered so ridiculous that 
there are preachers who think it degrading to their dig- 
nity to undertake it, or even see that it is diligently 
and faithfully performed by those appointed to it. It 
is no credit to our evangelical churches that catechetical 
instruction has been so little or not at all thought of in 
so many places ; though even Luther recommended it 
so strongly, and gave us so many admirable writings to 
promote it. But now it either does not exist at all, or is 
performed negligently, and thrown almost entirely upon 
schools and schoolmasters. 

" These duties should not have been left to school- 
masters ; for these are almost wholly unfit to discharge 



64 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



them on account of their own meagre attainments. But 
preachers should recollect that the souls of the youth 
are intrusted to them, and that they must give an ac- 
count of them. They should therefoi-e submit to this 
as well as to the other duties of their office. It is not 
indeed anywhere prescribed who among them should 
perform these duties. In places where there are several 
clergymen, and the pastors and superintendents are 
laden with so many other occupations that they cannot 
perform this duty, we cannot object to its being left for 
the deacons, or for others who may have more time for 
it. In large churches able catechists might be appointed. 
Superintendents, however, and theologians in high office 
would not do amiss if they would sometimes counte- 
nance this exercise by their presence, and even now and 
then perform it themselves in order to encourage others. 
If there were some who would voluntarily commence it 
themselves, it would not he interpreted ill, or thought be- 
low their dignity, 

" I have become acquainted with the character of 
most instructors of youth, and I find that their real aim 
is not to lead the soul of youth to God, but their pay 
also; that they are chiefly not fit to impart a correct 
knowledge of God since they do not possess it them- 
selves. And indeed there are very many who have not 
a knowledge even of the letter of that which is or is not 
to be believed ; much less do they comprehend thor- 
oughly and spiritually what is the will of God in faith 
and its fruits. Catechizing is as necessary to the church 
as any other religious agency can be." 

We have also the important authority of Calixtus 
on the sad condition of the education of the young. 

The chief cause and origin of the decay of learning," 
says he, "now tending to extinction, (which may God 



THEOLOGICAL LITEEATUIIE DEFECTIVE. 



66 



avert !) I hold for my own part, to be this : — that the 
younger children are not well grounded in the minor 
schools. Foundations ought to be laid there, which 
might afterwards support the whole weight of solid 
learning and true erudition. The children ought to 
learn from genuine authors the Greek and Latin lan- 
guages ; the Keys (as they are) of those treasures 
which preceding ages have laid up for our use. And 
they ought so to learn, as to be able to appreciate the 
thoughts of others (specially of the best authors), and 
to express their own in suitable and perspicuous words. 
. . . But now, in many places, we see the reverse of 
all this. Before they can speak (passing by preposte- 
rously the matters essential to ultimate success), the 
boys are made to proceed, or rather leap, to higher sub- 
jects; 'real' subjects, as we have learned to call them. 
Pedagogues of this stamp seem to themselves learned, 
whilst they are teaching what they have never them- 
selves mastered ; and what their scholars neither under- 
stand, nor at their age can understand. In the mean 
time the writings of those good authors, who, by all 
past ages, have been recognized as masters of literature 
and style, are struck out of their hands, and they (the 
schoolmasters) substitute their own comments ; disput- 
ing in a circle of children about Anti-Christ and the 
doctrine of predestination." ^ 

The theological literature of these times was volumi- 
nous and confused. A work on an unimportant subject 
would occupy a dozen volumes, and then the writer 
would give his finishing touches with the apology that 
he had not done justice to his theme. No nation pub- 
lishes to such an extent as Protestant Germany in the 
nineteenth century ; but one cannot be adequately con- 

* Orationes Selectm^ Henke, vol. 1, pp. 285-286. 



66 



mSTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



vinced of the extent of the literary activity of her the- 
ologians of the former half of the seventeenth century 
without loitering among the alcoves of her antiquarian 
bookstores of the present day. The dusty tomes tes- 
tify, by their multitude and care, to the character of 
the ecclesiastical age that gave them birth. The Ger- 
mans do not sell their old books to the paper merchants 
because they are old. It is sacrilege to convert the 
printed sheet back again to pulp. The libraries of 
the universities are located in those portions of the 
city where land is cheap ; the catalogue is a small 
library of itself. The Leipzig Fair keeps much of this 
long-printed literature before the world. It changes 
hands, migrates to Tiibingen, Halle, or some other 
book-loving place ; passes through a generation of 
owners, and turns up in some other spot, but little the 
worse for wear. The peasant is found at the book auc- 
tion ; the professor considers it a white day when a re- 
plenished purse and the sale of an old library are si- 
multaneous facts. And when the hour arrives, the prep- 
arations are sometimes of the most comfortable and 
leisure-inviting character. "We once attended an auction 
in picturesque old Brunswick which continued three 
days ; and coffee, beer, sandwiches and other refresh- 
ments were freely enjoyed at frequent intervals by nearly 
all present. Every one had a long breathing spell when 
the auctioneer, or any one of his numerous secretaries, 
sipped his coffee and replenished his pipe. 

We cannot aflSrm that there was as much a defi- 
ciency of talent or learning at the time of which we 
speak, as there was of an humble, subdued religious 
spirit, and of clearness of conception, all of which are 
equally necessary to give a high tone to theological 
writing and thinking. Dr. Pusey says of the theolo- 



PEOLIX THEOLOGICAL LITEEATUEE. 



67 



^iaus, that " they were highly learned but deficient in sci- 
entific spirit, freedom from prejudice, destitute of compre- 
hensive and discriminating views, without which mere 
knowledge is useless." An illustration is furnished in Ca- 
lov's mammoth production, entitled, Systema locorum 
Theologicorum e sacra potissimum scrippu/ra et antiqui- 
tate, nec non adversariorum confessione doctrinayn^prax- 
ia et controversiarum fidei cum veterum turn imprimis ~ 
recentiorum pertractationem luculentam exhihens. The 
author tried faithfully to redeem his pledge ; and though 
he asserted that he had aimed at conciseness, his work only 
terminated with the twelfth quarto volume ! The subject 
of the first part was the nature of Theology, Religion, 
Divine Inspiration, Holy Scriptures, and the articles of 
Faith. He defined Theology to be, that practical 
skill in the knowledge of true religion, as drawn from 
divine revelation, which is calculated to lead man after 
the fall through faith to eternal life. One of the im- 
portant questions propounded is : 

" Are the Calvinists to be considered heretics, and 
do they not teach very dangerous errors ? " Of course 
an affirmative reply is returned with cogent reasoDS 
therefor. At the end of this part there is a prolix re- 
cital of the many errors of George Calixtus and his 
followers. Calov conformed to the causal method of 
composition. There were two systems of arrangement 
in vogue, the causal and defining. Under the former 
were grouped the causce principales^ et minus princi^ 
pales^ instrumentales, efficientes, materiales^ formales^ 
finales. Under the latter, a definition was prefixed 
to each article, which comprised the whole doc- 
trine of the church and all the opposed heresies. This 
was then redundantly illustrated until the subject was 
supposed to be exhausted. Schertzer, in his doctrinal 



68 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



work, begins with a definition of Christ, and occu- 
pies three quarto pages with one sentence. We ven- 
ture only its commencement : " Christ is God-man ; 
God and man, born of his heavenly Father and his 
virgin mother ; and Christ is according to his humanity 
the natural son of God, constant in his unity to one 
person, his divine and human nature impeccable." The 
favorite class-book of those times was Koenig's Theolo- 
giapositwa acroamatica synoptice tractata ; and it does 
but partial justice to this work to say that in dryness 
and meagreness it almost defies a parallel. 

There was a lamentable decrease of exegetical works 
and lectures toward the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. The Eeformation was the signal for scriptural 
study ; and the Reformers declared the word of God to 
be the origin of their gigantic movement. All the 
ordinances of the early Lutheran Church were in strict 
keeping with this principle. The Elector Augustus, in 
his church order of 1580, established professors solely 
for the elucidation of the Scriptures. He appointed two 
to lecture on the Old Testament, one on the Pentateuch 
and the other on the prophets ; and two on the New 
Testament. His command was, that they should all 
read the Scriptures, as far as they could, in the same 
languages in which the prophets and apostles had writ- 
ten. Many of the universities had no other professors 
of theology than exegetical lecturers. The languages 
of the Bible were diligently studied, and great progress 
was made in their scientific understanding. 

But after the rise of the long and exciting controver- 
sies of which we have spoken, the death-blow was given 
to scriptural interpretation. The method of theologi- 
cal study was to spend the first year in learning what 
is orthodox. The second was occupied in obtaining a 



DECLENSION OF PEEACHmO. 



69 



knowledge of controversies ; the third was devoted to 
the Scriptures, a more intimate knowledge of contro- 
versial literature, and the scholastics. One day in the 
week was spent with the Fathers, Church Councils, and 
moral theology. The later years were chiefly consumed 
in controversial practice, as a preparation for the great 
arena. Francke as truthfully described these times as 
his own when he said : "Youths are sent to the univer- 
sities with a moderate knowledge of Latin ; but of 
Greek and especially of Hebrew they have next to 
none. And it would even then have been well, if what 
had been neglected before had been made up in the uni- 
versities. There, however, most are borne, as by a tor- 
rent, with the multitude ; they flock to logical, meta- 
physical, ethical, polemical, physical, pneumatical lec- 
tures and what not ; treating least of all those things 
whose benefit is most permanent in their future office, 
especially deferring, and at last neglecting, the study of 
the sacred languages." 

But while there were many evidences of religious 
torpor there were none more marked and unmistakable 
than the preaching of that time. The pulpit being an 
invariable index of the state of the national heart, it 
was not less the case during this dreary period. The 
preaching was of the most formal and methodical tex- 
ture. It assumed a rhetorical and poetical appearance ; 
the people calling it the Italian style. Petrarch had 
given shape to Italian thought, and through his influ- 
ence Germany became sated with poetic imagery and 
overwrought fancy. Sagittarius founded a stipend for 
the preaching of a yearly sermon in the University 
Church " which should be more a practical illustration 
of Christian doctrine than of lofty speechy Emblem- 
atical sermons were sometimes delivered in lengthy 
series. 



70 



HISTORY OF EATIOI^ALISM. 



Christopher Sunday descanted on the Perpetual 
Heart- Calendar ^ ivQ2i\Awg oi genera and species, and di- 
viding his themes into "Eemarkable, Historical, and 
Annual events, Particular numbers, and the amounts of 
Roman currency, the Four Seasons, the Seven Planets, 
the Twelve Heavenly signs, and many aspects and use- 
ful directions." All these, this divine claimed, are to be 
found in the Gospel as in a perpetual calendar of the 
heart. Another preacher adopted as his theme for a 
funeral sermon. The Secret of Hoses and Flowers. 
Daniel Keck preached a discourse in 1642 from Romans 
viii. 18, calling his subject " The Apostolic Syllogism," 
dividing it into subject^ predicate^ and conclusion. The 
subject, suffering., was again divided into wiched^ volun- 
tary.^ stolid and righteous ; and these further classed into 
natural, civil and spiritual suffering. 

A sermon on Zaccheus from the words, He was Uttle 
of stature., claims for its theme, " The stature and size 
of Zaccheus." The first division is, he ; the second, 
was ; third, small stature. Application ^r^^, The text 
teaches us the variety of God's works ; second., it con- 
soles the poor ; third., it teaches us to make amends for 
our personal defects by virtue. Tholuck well asks, 
who would imagine that the author of this sermon was 
the minstrel of " When the early sun arises," " Oh 
Jesus, all thy bleeding wounds," and so many other 
deeply earnest Christian songs which have touched the 
hearts of many generations, — the immortal Hermann 
von Koben ? A pastor of Wernigerode preached from 
Matthew x. 30. His divisions were, 1 : Our hair — its 
origin, style, form and natural circumstances. 2 : On 
the right use of the human hair. 3 : The memories, 
admonition, warning and consolation that have come 
from the human hair. 4 : How hair can be used in a 



DECLENSION OF PREACHING. 



71 



Christian way ! A Brunswick pastor commenced his 
Sabbath discourse on one occasion with the words, "A 
preacher must have three things ; a good conscience^ a 
good Mie^ and a good hiss ; " wherefore his transition was 
made to the theme under consideration: ''^an increase 
of my salaryP But it is needless to continue illustra- 
tions of the almost universal dearth of preaching. One- 
hardly knows whether to laugh at its absurdity or weep 
over its prostitution. 

Andrea's caustic pen revelled in satire at the de- 
preciation of this important agency of good. Some of 
his ideas are by no means ill-timed in the present cen- 
tury. In the Dialogue of the Pulpit Orator he thus 
speaks : * 

A. Tell me earnestly, I pray you, what you find 
wanting in my present sermon. 

B. One thing only, but that a main point. 

A. It cannot be in the arrangement ? 

B. It was, I believe, according to all the rules of 
the methods. 

A. Then the pronunciation was defective ? 

B. You must speak as God has made you ; only you 
must not be an imitator. 

A. Then the action was wrong ? 

B. About that I am indifferent, if it be only quiet 
and not gesticulatory. 

A. My sermon must have been much too long ? 
If a sermon he good it carCt he too long : a had 
one always is. 

A. Certainly I did not produce illustrations enough ? 

B. You could not have meant to empty a basket of 
quotations. 

A. Then I spoke too slow ? 

* We use Dr. E. B. Pusej's version of Andrea's words. 



72 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



B. Ha ! In the pulpit we must teach, not talk too 
volubly. 

A. I should have spoken louder too ? 

B. I like the voice of man, not the braying of 
an ass. 

A. Should I not have used more subtle distinctions ? 

B. You were there to instruct the ignorant, not to 
dispute with heretics. 

A. Do then explain yourself more fully. 

B. Hear me : you said, I think much, very much,'^ 
which was good, but it only flowed through you as 
through a pipe. 

A. Indeed! 

B. Thus, much contracted the taste of the pipe and 
savored accordingly. 

A. No good compliment, this. 

B. It is the best I can make. For when you only 
cast forth good and wholesome doctrines, and show 
nothing of them expressed in your life and manners, 
are you not placed out of yourself to speak one thing 
and think another ? You make us believe that your 
holy words are only practised solemn words, without 
any real feeling, just as poets make bridal songs and fu- 
neral dirges whenever called upon. You have many 
passages of Scripture in readiness ; but they do not 
exhort, strengthen and instruct you, though others die 
with joy at hearing the divine word. 

A. You are severe upon me. 

B. It is not often the case that the worst men 
preach the best. I wish but one thing : that for the 
future you should say nothing but what you express in 
action by your example, or at least realize by serious 
endeavors after obedience to God. 

A. This is harsh enough. 



CLEEICAL IMMORALITY. 



73 



B. It is incomparably harsher, however, to openly 
contradict oneself before God both in words and works, 
and to convert the divine service into an empty clatter 
of words. 

A. You speak truly. 

B. And it is just as true, believe me, that a simple, 
plain sermon, exhibited and sealed by your life, is more 
valuable than a thousand clever declamations. 

This want of consistency between the profession of 
the clergy and their daily life is indeed a dark picture. 
While we would not forget that there were noble ex- 
ceptions to all the examples of declension that we have 
adduced, and that there were also exemplary illustra- 
tions of ministerial devotion amid all the deformity of 
these times, we must maintain that the ministerial spirit 
which characterized this period was not merely cold 
and indifferent, but wicked, and to a great extent aban- 
doned. 

The scenes of clerical immorality are enough to 
chill one's blood even at the distance of more than two 
centuries. The preachers were not licensed to preach 
until they had been graduated through a course of 
study extending from five to ten years. According to 
the judgment of the Lutheran Church, they must be 
fitted intellectually for exercising the functions of their 
office. But after settlement over the churches of the 
land, their conduct furnishes a sad proof that their in- 
tellectual qualifications were utterly barren without the 
more important adjunct of spiritual regeneration. They 
"were not converted men, as the sequel will plainly 
Bhow. The salary allowed them was usually small; 
and this is the apology pleaded for them by their 
friends ; but scanty salaries are the outgrowth of scanty 
ministerial piety. The people, in no age of the world. 



74 



HISTOEY OF EATIONAIISM. 



have refused a proper and sufficient support to a zealous, 
God-fearing ministry. 

A Church Order of 1600 reads thus : " Since we 
have received information that servants of the church 
(clergy) and schoolmasters, the parochial teachers, are 
guilty of whoredom and fornication, we command that 
if they are notoriously guilty they shall be suspended. 
We learn, too, that some of the village pastors do not 
possess the Bible. We command that they shall get a 
Bible and Concordance. Those whom we formerly sus- 
pended shall remain so until they give proof of a reforma- 
tion." A pastor Pfeifer of Neukirchen and Lassau lived 
five unhappy years with his congregation ; and from 
mere private prejudice refused the sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper to the sick and dying. On communion- 
day he overturned the baskets of the fish-venders ; was 
wounded for his conduct ; and then went into his church 
to the performance of his ministerial duties. He did 
not scruple to administer the elements with his bloody 
hands. Pastor Johansen of Detzboll wrote in his 
Church Eecord in 1647, the following: ^' The persons 
whom I will name have persecuted me in my office, 
but God delivered me miraculously out of their hands. 
J. Dirksen struck me down with a pitchfork: I was 
taken home as dead but recovered again ; some years 
afterwards he was struck dead, and died in the street. 
J. Volkwartsen struck me with my own spade. Subse- 
quently he was killed by his brother. Where his soul 
went, God only knows. P. Peusen was on the point 
of stabbing me through, but M. Pay ens saved me. A. 
Frese committed adultery with my wife, and followed 
me with a loaded rifle. D. Momsen broke two of my 
right ribs : he apologized afterwards for his offence. I 
forgave him. O Jesus, protect me and thy poor Chris- 



CORRUPT UmVERSITY LITE. 



75^ 



, tianity, that I may praise tliee in eternity ! " A church 
I made the following charges against its pastor : I. He 
! called certain people " scoundrels" from the pulpit ; to 
which the offender pleaded " guilty." II. He had grown 
so angry in his sermon that he afterward forgot the 
Lord's Prayer. He urged that " this had happened 
some time ago." III. When some women went out af- 
ter the sermon, he called after them, and told them that 
if they would not stop to receive the blessing they 
would have his curse ; " not guilty." IV. He had co- 
habited with a servant girl, and an illegitimate child 
was born ; " others do the same thing." V. He forgot 
the cup at the communion ; " that happened long ago." 
VI. He said to the officer, " All are devils who want me 
to go to Messing ; " " that is true." 

There were sad evidences of the same immorality in 
University life. Melanchthon's prophecy had proved too 
true : " We have seen already how religion has been put 
in peril by the irruption of barbarism, and I am very 
much af raid that this will happen again!''' At a Dispu- 
tation in the University of Wittenberg the Chancellor 
addressed a disputant with such epithets as " Hear, thou 
hog ! thou hound ! thou fool ! or whatever thou art, 
thou stolid ass ! " Another prominent personage of 
Wittenberg, in a Disputation, became so enraged at hear- 
ing Melanchthon addressed as authority against him, that 
he pulled down the great Reformer's picture which 
hung near him, and trampled it under his feet. One 
Professor was so deeply in debt that he could not pay 
his creditors, " if every hair on his head were a ducat" 
Another was " in bed with seven wounds received in a 
fall when he was coming home drunk." Some read 
their newspapers at church-service. Nor did the 
wives and daughters of the Professors lead any better 



76 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



life. They were guilty of deeds of the grossest immo- 
rality, such indeed as would disgrace a less enlightened 
people than the Germans at that period.^ 

The great moral decline of the clergy was confined 
chiefly to the Lutheran church. The Eeformed was ear- 
nest, pious, and aggressive. At this very time it was 
endeavoring to spread the leaven of the Gospel through 
other lands. It was, during the whole period, the con- 
servative power of Protestantism. As might be ex- 
pected, it suffered somewhat from the declension of 
Lutheranism ; but it stood manfully up to the crisis and 
met the issues with an heroic spirit. When the Roman 
Catholics saw these excesses of the Lutherans, and wit- 
nessed the return to their fold of many Protestants who 
had become disgusted with the vices of their brethren, 
they rejoiced greatly, and used every available means 
to bring back more of their erring friends. 

We must remember, however, that it was the clergy 
and not the laity who were the agents of the great 
declension. The theologians had submerged the land 
in fruitless controversy ; they hesitated not to commit 
open sin when occasion demanded it ; they neglected 
the youth of the whole country ; the ignorant peas- 
antry were not blessed with even the crumbs of truth ; 
the pulpit was perverted to a cathedra for the declama- 
tion of the hyperbolical rhetoric that a corrupt taste 
had imported from Spain and Italy ; the Apocryi)ha 
was the all-important part of the Bible; and the private 

M602: Der Fran Gerlach (Prof. Theol.) Tochter ist in Geschrei, dasi^ 
sie mit einem Mnde gelie. 1613 : Dr. Happrecht's Tochter hat ihre Jung- 
frauschaffc verloren. 1622: Dr. Magirus klagt dass seine Frau die Dienstbo- 
tenihnx nicht zur Disposition stelle, mit den AUmentis nicht zufrieden sei, 
immer Gaste einlade, und viel herum lanfe. Fran Magirns klagt ihren 
Ehemann des Ehebrnchs an. Tholuck, Deutsche Uhwersitdten. Vol. 1, 
pp. 145-148. Also Dowding, Zife and Correspondence of CalixPus, pp. 
132-133. 



POPULAR SKEPTICISM. 



17 



life of the clergy was corrupt and odious to the Chris- 
tian conscience. What wonder that the piety of the 
people suffered a similar decline ? Let the ministry be 
steadfast, and the masses will never swerve. The result 
in the present case was, that the latter gradually be- 
came imbued with the same impiety that they had 
learned, to their sorrow, of the former. 

Glancing first at the cultivated circles, we find a 
practical indifference well nigh akin to skepticism be- 
ginning to prevail among the noble and wealthy. The 
deference which the Reformers paid to the princes led 
the latter to a too free exercise of their power, and 
there are numberless instances of their despotic usur- 
pations. They claimed supreme control over the re- 
ligious interests of their jurisdiction, and came into fre- 
quent conflict with the ecclesiastical tribunals. They 
maintained a tolerable show of religion, however, consid- 
ering it a matter of prime importance to have the ser- 
vices of chaplains, and to give due public prominence to 
doctrinal questions. Their courts were most generally 
irreligious, and sometimes notoriously corrupt. 

Walther, the court chaplain of Ulrich II. of East 
Friesland, wrote in 1637 a letter from which we take 
the following words : " I would much rather be silent 
concerning my sore misfortune, which I am here under- 
going than, by speaking, to make the wounds of my 
heart break out afresh. These infernal courtiers, among 
whom I am compelled to live against my will, doubt 
those truths which even the heathen have learned to be- 
lieve." A writer of 1630 describes three classes of 
skeptics among the nobility of Hamburg ; first, those 
who believe that religion is nothing but a mere fiction, 
invented to keep the masses within restraint ; secaiid, 
those who give preference to no faith, but think that all 



78 



HISTOBY OF RATIONALISM. 



religions have a germ of truth ; and third, those who^ 
confessing that there must be one true religion, are un- 
able to decide whether it is papal, Calvinist, or Luther- 
an ; and consequently believe nothing at all. 

This classification might be applied to the whole of 
Protestant Germany, as far as the higher classes are 
concerned. They exhibited a growing taste for an- 
tiquity ; and, with them, there was but a slight differ- 
ence between the sublime utterances of inspiration and 
the masterpieces of pagan genius. We find in a cate. 
chism of that time that the proverbs of Cato and the 
Mimi Pvhliani constitute an authorized appendix. 

A practical infidelity, beai'ing the name of Epicu- 
reanism, prevailed even before the war ; and it became 
more decided and injurious as the war progressed. The 
highest idea of religion was adherence to creed. Princes 
who even thought themselves devoted and earnest, had 
no experimental knowledge of regeneration ; and in 
this, as we have shown, they were but little surpassed 
by the clergy themselves. Orthodoxy was the aim 
and pride of those religionists. Hear the dying testi- 
mony of John Christian Koenig, in 1664: "My dear 
Confessor, since I observe that the good Lord is ab6ut 
to take me out of this world, I want it understood that I 
remain unchanged and firm to the Augsbu rg Confession ; 
I will live by it and die true to it. It is well known 
that I have directed my teaching according to its 
truths. I die the avowed enemy of all innovation and 
Syncretistic error ! " 

The licentiousness of life, not less than of faith, was 
deplorable in the German courts. Dancing was carried 
to great excess and indecorum ; and though there were 
edicts issued against it during the Thirty Years^ War, 
the custom seems to have undergone but little abate- 



POPULAR IMMOEALITY. 



79 



ment. Drunkenness was very common, and even the 
highest dignitaries set but a sorry example in this 
respect. The Court of Ludwig of Wiirtemberg estab- 
lished six glasses of wine as the minimum evidence of 
good breeding; one to quench the thirst; the second 
for the King's health ; the third for those present ; the 
fourth for the feast-giver and his wife ; the fifth for the 
permanence of the government, and the last for absent 
friends. The example of all nations proves that when 
the nobility thus indulge themselves and become the 
devotees of passion and luxury, they do not need to 
wait long for imitators among the lower and poorer 
classes. The poor looked to the rich and their rulers 
as standards of fashion and religion. They esteemed it 
not less an honor than a privilege to follow in the foot- 
steps of their acknowledged chiefs. The governing and 
the governed stood but a short distance from each 
other, both in faith and in morals. 

There was great display and extravagance in the 
ordinary ceremonies of matrimony and baptism. It 
was quite common for the wedding festival to last 
three days, and the baptismal feast two days. The 
expenses were not at all justified by the means of 
the feast-makers ; for the humblest mechanics indulged 
themselves to an excessive extent. Even funeral occa- 
sions were made to subserve the dissipating spirit of 
these times ; they were the signal for hilarity and feast- 
ing. Distant friends were invited to be present; and 
the whole scene was at once repulsive to a healthy 
taste and pure religion. A writer from the very midst 
of the Thirty Years' War gives us the following item: 
" The number of courses served at funerals frequently 
amounted to as many as two hundred and thirty -four. 
The tables were furnished with expensive luxuries and 



80 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



costly wines, and the people gave themselves up to 
feasting and rioting until far into the night." The com- 
mon people became more habituated to drinking strong 
liquors. New breweries arose in various localities, and 
drunkenness became a wide-spread evil. In 1600^ the 
city of Zwickau numbered only ten thousand inhabi- 
tants ; but it could claim thirty-four breweries to supply 
them with beer. During the war, in 1631, that num- 
ber rose to seventy. 

But it is needless to particularize the phases of pop- 
ular immorality as they existed in the time of which 
we speak. It is enough to say that all classes be- 
trayed a growing disgust at religion and a gradual de- 
cline in morals. The danger was imminent that the 
great work of the Reformation would be in vain, and 
that it would soon come to ruin. 

Every department of ecclesiastical authority having 
become disarranged and weakened, there must now be 
a reawakening, or the labors of Luther and his coadju- 
tors will be swept away. The popular mind should be 
deflected from controversy, and become united, at least 
on some points of faith and theory. The pulpit needs 
a thorough regeneration, and the Gospel should reach 
the masses by a natural and earnest method. The uni- 
versity system calls for reorganization, and a rigid cen- 
sorship exercised upon the teachings of the professors. 
Childhood must be no longer neglected, and the illite- 
rate must become indoctrinated into the elements of 
Scriptural truth. The prevalent social evils should re- 
ceive severe rebuke from the private Christian and the 
public teacher. Calixtus, Boehme, Arndt and Gerhard 
have done nobly, but they have pursued paths so totally 
divergent that their labors have not produced all the 
good effects of a united work. Their efforts were pre* 



A PLAN NECESSAEY. 



81 



paratory, but not homogeneous ; and what is now 
needed to make their writings and example permanently 
effective, is a plan for infusing new life into the church. 
Then there must be inflexible system and heroic deter- 
mination for the consummation of such a plan. 

AVhen the demand became most imperative, the 
great want was supplied. Let all the records of prov- 
idential supply and guidance be studiously searched, 
and we believe that Pietism — the great movement 
which we are now about to trace — will take its place 
among them as one of the clearest, most decided, and 
most triumphant. 



CHAPTER III. 



PIETISM AND ITS MISSION. 

If any apology can be offered in defence of the 
ecclesiastical evils already recounted, it will be, that the 
fearful devastations of the long warfare had wrought the 
public mind into a feverish and unnatural state. We 
must not, therefore, pass that cold criticism upon the 
Church and her representatives to which they would 
be justly entitled, had they been guilty of the same 
vices during a time of profound peace and material 
prosperity. 

The philosophy of this whole period of ecclesiastical 
history may be summed up in a sentence : The numer- 
ous theological controversies, and the pastoral neglect 
of the people, before the war, had unfitted both the 
clergy and the masses for deriving from it that deep 
penitence and thorough reconsecration which a sea- 
son of great national affliction should have engen- 
dered. The moral excesses apparent during this time 
had been produced by causes long anterior to it. 
Hence, when the protracted time of carnage and the 
destruction of property did come, there was no prepara- 
tion of mind or heart to derive improvement from it. 
Had some provision been made, had theology not 
abounded in idle disputes, and had the moral education 



mPEOVEMENT OF THE CLERGY. 



83 



of the masses been faithfully cared for, instead of the 
evils which have been so reluctantly related, there 
would have been a lengthy succession of glowing in- 
stances of devout piety. And Protestantism, instead 
of emerging from th-e conflict with only equal rights 
before the law, would have possessed a sanctified heart, 
and a vigorous, truth-seeking mind. 

Time was now needed to gather up the instruction 
taught by those pillaged towns, slain citizens, and 
broken social and ecclesiastical systems. A few years 
passed by, when the lessons began to be learned, and 
signs of rejuvenation appeared. After Spener had com- 
menced his reformatory labors, he expressly and repeat- 
edly declared that he did not originate, but only gave 
expression to, a spirit of religious earnestness that had 
already arisen in various quarters. To him belongs the 
honor of cultivating and guiding these reassured hearts 
who had derived most improvement from the Thirty 
Years' War. Pietism, the fruit of their union, became 
a triumph under the leadership of Spener. 

'But who were these persons who became aroused 
to a sense of the exigencies of the times, and saw that 
the danger which threatened the kingdom of God in 
Germany was now scarcely less than when Tilly was 
leading his maddened hordes through the fair fields 
and over the ruins of those once happy towns ? Some 
of the clergy were the first to indicate new life. They 
preached with more unction, and addressed themselves 
to the imimediate demands of the parish, especially to 
provide for the orphans and widows of those who had 
fallen in battle. Certain ministers who had spent their 
youth in vain theological wrangling, preached sennons 
which contained better matter than redundant meta- 
phor and classical quotations. Miiller and Scriver serve 



84 



HISTOKY OF EATIOJ^ALISM. 



as fitting illustrations of the improvement. Tliey 
avoided the extended analytical and rhetorical methods 
long in use, and adopted the more practical system of 
earnest appeal and exhortation. 

The clergy needed not to wait long before behold- * 
ing the fruit of their labors. For a better spirit mani- 
fested itself also among the lower classes. A singular 
interest arose in sacred music. Not only in those ven- 
erable Gothic Cathedrals, so long the glory of the Ro- 
man Catholic Church, but in the field and the work- 
shop there could be heard the melodies of Luther, 
Sachs, and Paul Gerhard. Young men appeared in 
numbers, offering themselves as candidates for the min- 
istry. But let it not be supposed that these encourag- 
ing signs were universal. While the eye of faith could 
read the most decided lessons of hope, the religious 
dearth was still wide-spread. Nor was it unlikely that 
in a short time it would triumph over all the efforts for 
new life. When Spener rose to a position of promi- 
nence and influence, he saw, as no one else was able to 
see, the real danger to the cause of truth ; and those 
affecting descriptions which we find among his writings, 
revealing the real wants of the latter half of the seven- 
teenth century, show how keenly his own heart had 
become impressed by them. 

It was very evident that the Lutheran Church 
would require a long period for self-purification, if 
indeed she could achieve it at all. The shorter and 
more effectual way would be to operate indwiduaWy 
upon the popular mind. And does not the entire his- 
tory of the Church prove that reform has originated 
from no concerted action of the body needing reforma- 
tion, but from the solemn conviction and persevering 
efforts of some single mind, which, working first alone, 



PIETISM A NECESSITY OF THE TIMES. 



85 



has afterward won to its assistance many others ? Its 
work then reacted upon the parent organization in 
such way that the latter became animated with new 
power. 

The enemies of Pietism made the same objection to 
it that all the opponents of reform have ever made : 
" This is very good in itself, but do you not see that it 
is not the Church that is working ? We would love to 
see the cause of truth advanced and our torpid Church 
invigorated with the old Eeformation-life ; but we 
would rather see the whole matter done in a perfectly 
systematic and legitimate way. Now this Pietism has 
some good features about it, but it acts in its own name. 
We do not like this absurd fancy of ecclesiolce in eccle- 
sia ; but we prefer the Church to act as the Church, 
and for its own purposes." Thus reasoned the enemies 
of Pietism, who claimed as heartily as any of their con- 
temporaries that they were strict adherents of truth and 
warm supporters of spiritual life. But their reasoning, 
however baseless, found favor ; and the Church gradu- 
ally came to look upon Pietism not as a handmaid, 
but as an adversary. 

But we must first learn what Pietism proposed to 
do before we can appreciate its historical importance. 
Dorner holds, with a large number of others, that this 
new tendency was a necessary stage in the develop- 
ment of Protestantism, — a supplement of the Eeforma- 
tion. Though laughed at for two centuries by the 
Churchists on the one hand, and by the Eationalists on 
the other, it has to-day a firmer hold upon the respect 
of those who know its history best than at any former 
period. What if Arnold, and Petersen and his wife, 
did indulge in great extravagances? Have not the 
game unpleasant things occurred in the Church at other 



86 



HISTORY OF llATIO^^ALISM. 



times ? Yet, because not classed under any sectarian 
name, there has been but a transient estimate placed 
upon them, and criticism has been merciless. Is not 
every good institution subject to perversion at any 
time? We believe Dorner to be correct, and that Spe- 
ner was the veritable successor of Luther and Melanch- 
thon. Karl August Auberlen, who showed a singular 
facility in grouping historical periods and discovering 
tho'.r great significance, says: " Pietism went back from 
the cold faith of the seventeenth century to the living 
faith of the Reformation. But just because this return 
was vital and produced by the agency of the Holy 
Spirit, it could not be termed a literal return. We 
must not forget that the orthodoxy of the seventeenth 
century was only the extreme elaboration of an error, 
the beginning of which we find as far back as Luther's 
time, and which became more and more a power in the 
Church through the influence of Melanchthon. It was 
this : Mistaking the faith by which we believe for the 
faith which is believed. The principle of the Reforma- 
tion was justification by faith, not the doctrine of faith 
and justification. In reply to the Catholics it was 
deemed sufficient to show that this was the tnie doc- 
trine which points out the way of salvation to man. 
And the great danger lay in mistaking faith itself for 
the doctrine of faith. Therefore, in the controversies 
concerning justifying faith, we find that faith gradually 
came to be considered in relation to its doctrinal aspects 
more than in connection with the personal, practical, 
and experimental knowledge of men. In this view 
Pietism is an elaboration of the faith of the sixteenth 

century Without being heterodox, Spener 

even expressed himself in the most decided manner in 
favor of the doctrines of the Church, He would make 



AUBERLEN*S TESTIMONY. 



87 



faitli consist less in the dogmatism of tlie head than in 
the motions of the heart ; he would bring the doctrine 
away from the angry disputes of the schools and incor- 
porate it into practical life. He was thoroughly united 
with the Reformers as to the real signification of justi- 
fying faith, but these contraries which were sought to 

be reestablished he rejected From Spener's 

view a new phase of spiiitual life began to pervade the 
heart. The orthodoxy of the State Church had been 
accustomed to consider all baptized persons as true 
believers if only they had been educated in wholesome 
doctrines. There was a general denial of that living, 
conscious, self-faith which was vital in Luther, and had 
transformed the world. The land, because it was fur- 
nished with the gospel and the sacraments, was consid- 
ered an evangelical country. The contrast between 
mere worldly and spiritual life, between the living and 
dead members of the Church, was practically abolished, 
though there still remained a theoretical distinction 
between the visible and invisible Church. As to the 
world outside the pale of the Church, the Jews and 
Heathen, there was no thought whatever. Men be- 
lieved they had done their whole duty when they had 
roundly combated the other Christian Churches. 
Thus lived the State Chui'ch in quiet confidence of 
its own safety and pure doctrine at the time when the 
nation was recovering from the devastations of the 
Thirty Years' War. ^ In the times succeeding the 
Reformation,' says a Wiirtemberg pastor of the past 
century, ' the greater portion of the common people 
trusted that they would certainly be saved if they 
believed correct doctrines; if one is neither a Roman 
Catholic, nor a Calvinist, and confesses his opposition, 



88 



HISTORY OF RATION ALlb^M. 



he cannot possibly miss heaven ; holiness is not so 
necessary after all.' " ^ 

The enemies of Pietism have confounded it with 
Mysticism. There are undoubted points in common, 
but Pietism was aggressive instead of contemplative ; 
it was practical rather than theoretical. Both systems 
made purity of life essential, but Mysticism could not 
guard against mental disease, while Pietism enjoyed a 
long season of healthful life. The latter was far too 
much engaged in relieving immediate and pressing 
wants to fall into the gross errors which mark almost 
the entire career of the former. Pietism was mystical 
in so far as it made purity of heart essential to salva- 
tion ; but it was the very antipodes of Mysticism when 
organized and operating against a languid and torpid 
Church with such weapons as Spener and his coadju- 
tors employed. Boehme and Spener were world-wide 
apart in many respects ; but in purity of heart they 
were beautifully in unison. 

Pietism commenced upon the principle that the 
Church was corrupt ; that the ministry were generally 
guilty of gross neglect; and that the people were 
cursed with spiritual death. It proposed as a theo- 
logical means of improvement : I. That the scholastic 
theology, which reigned in the academies, and was com- 
posed of the intricate and disputable doctrines and 
obscure and unusual forms of expression, should be 
totally abolished. II. That polemical divinity, which 
comprehended the controversies subsisting between 
Christians of different communions, should be less 
eagerly studied and less frequently treated, though not 

' Die Gdttliche Offenlarmig, vol. I., j^p. 278-281. The second volume 
of this important work had just been completed when the gifted author 
died, May 2, 1864. His book has taken its place in the catalogue of 
brilliant but hopeless fragments. 



SPENER AS A YOUTH. 



89 



entirely neglected. III. That all mixture of philoso- 
phy and human science with divine wisdom was to "be 
most carefully avoided ; that is, that pagan philosophy 
and classical learning should be kept distinct from, and 
by no means supersede, biblical theology. But, IV. 
That, on the contrary, all those students who were 
designed for the ministry should be kept accustomed 
from their early youth to the perusal and study of the 
Holy Scriptures, and be taught a plain system of theol- 
ogy drawn from these unerring sources of truth. V. 
That the whole course of their education should be so 
directed as to render them useful in life, by the practi- 
cal power of their doctrine, and the commanding influ- 
ence of their example.^ 

The founder of Pietism, Philip Jacob Spener, was 
in many respects the most remarkable man of his cen- 
tury. He was only thirteen years old at the close of 
the Thirty Years' War. His educational advantages 
were great ; and after completing his theological studies 
at Strasburg, where he enjoyed the society and instruc- 
tion of the younger Buxtorf, he made the customary 
tour of the universities. He visited Basle, Tubingen, 
Freiburg, Geneva, and Lyons ; spending three years be- 
fore his return home. From a child he was noted for 
his taciturn, peaceful, confiding disposition ; and when 
he reached manhood these same qualities increased 
in strength and beauty. His studies had led him some- 
what from the course of theology — at least certain 
branches of it — and he became greatly fascinated with 
heraldry. But gradually he identified himself with 
pastoral life, and into its wants and duties he entered 
with great enthusiasm. He was for a short time public 
preacher in Strasburg, but on removing from that city 

* "Watson, Theolog. Diet. Art. Protestant Pietists* 



90 



HISTORY OF KATIO^fALISM. 



he assumed the same office in Frankfoi-t-on-the-MaiiL 
Here the field opened fairly before him, and, confident 
of success, he began the work of reform. 

The instruction of children in the doctrines of Chris- 
tianity, as we have already said, had been sadly neg- 
lected, because the pastors of the church had committed 
the task to less competent hands. Spener determined 
that he would assume complete control of the matter 
himself, and, if possible, teach the children during the 
week without any cooperation. His labors proved a 
great success ; and his reform in catechetical instruction, 
not only in Frankfort, but thence into many parts of 
Germany, eventuated in one of the chief triumphs of 
his life. But he had further noticed that the customary 
preaching was much above the capacity, and unsuited 
to the wants, of the masses. He resolved upon a simple 
and perspicuous style of discourse, such as the common 
mind could comprehend. But, seeing that this was not 
enough, he organized weekly meetings of his hearers, to 
which they were cordially invited. There he introduced 
the themes of the previous Sabbath, explained any diffi- 
cult points that were not fully understood, and enlarged 
on the plain themes of the gospel. These meetings 
were the Collegia Pietatis^ or Schools of Devotion^ which 
gave the first occasion for the reproachful epithet of 
Pietism. They brought upon their founder much op- 
position and odium, but were destined to produce an 
abundant harvest throughout the land. Spener enter- 
tained young men at his own house, and prepared 
them, by careful instruction and his own godly example, 
for great ministerial usefulness. These, too, were nur- 
tured in the collegia, and there they learned how to 
deal with the uneducated mind and to meet the great 
wants of the people. The meetings were, at the outset, 



GllOWING INFLUENCE OF SPENER. 



91 



scantily attended, but they increased so mucli in interest 
that, first his own dwelling, and then his church, became 
crowded to their utmost capacity. 

In 1675 Spener published his great work, Pia 
sideria. Here he laid down his platform : That the word 
of God should he brought home to the popular hea/rt ; 
that laymen^ when capable and pious^ -should act as 
preachers^ thus becoming a valuable ally of the ministry ; 
that deep love and practical piety are a necessity to every 
preacher ; that hindness^ moderation^ and an effort to 
convince should be observed toward theological opponents ; 
that great efforts should be made to have worthy and 
divinely-called young men propei^ly instructed for the 
ministry ; and that all preachers should urge upon the 
people the importance of faith and its fruits. This book 
was the foundation of Spener's greatest influence and also 
of the strongest opposition with which he met. As 
long as he taught in private he escaped all general an- 
tagonism ; but on the publication of his work he be- 
came the mark of envy, formalism, and high-churchism. 

After he was invited to Dresden in 1686, the state 
church indicated a decided disapprobation of his meas- 
ures. He incurred the displeasure of the Elector by 
his fearless preaching and novel course of educating the 
young. His teaching of the masses drew upon him the 
charge that " a coui't-preacher was invited to Dresden, 
but behold, nothing but a school teacher ! " He deemed 
it his duty to accept the invitation of Frederic of Bran- 
denburg to make Berlin his residence, where, in 1705, 
he ended his days, after a life of remarkable usefulness 
but of unusual strife. 

It would be a pleasure to linger a while in the 
beautiful scenes which Spener's life affords us. En- 
dowed with the most childlike nature, he was never- 



92 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



theless a lion in contest. And yet who will find any 
bitterness in his words; where does he wax angry 
against his opponent? He did not shun contro- 
versy, because his mission demanded it ; but no man 
loved peace more than Spener. His mind was always 
calm ; and it was his lifelong aim to " do no sin." His 
enemies, — among whom we must not forget that he had 
a Schelwig, a Carpzov, an Alberti, and a whole Witten- 
berg Faculty, — never denied his amiable disposition ; 
and it was one of his expressions in late life that " all 
the attacks of his enemies had never afflicted him with 
but one sleepless night." It was his personal character 
that went almost as far as his various writings to infuse 
practical piety into the church. He was respected by 
the great and good throughout the land. Crowned 
heads from distant parts of the Continent wrote to him, 
asking his advice on ecclesiastical questions. He was 
one of those men who, like Luther, Wesley, and others, 
were not blind to the great service of an extensive cor- 
respondence. He answered six hundred and twenty- 
two letters during one year, and at the end of that time 
there lay three hundred unanswered upon his table. 
His activity in composition knew no bounds. For 
many years of his life he was a member of the Consis- 
tory, and was engaged in its sessions from eight o'clock 
in the morning until seven in the evening. But still 
he found time, according to Canstein, to publish seven 
folio volumes, sixty-three quartos, seven octavos, and 
forty-six duodecimos ; besides very many introductions 
and prefaces to the works of friends and admirers, and 
republications of practical books suited to the times and 
the cause he was serving. After his death his enemiea 
did all in their power to cast reproach upon his name. 
They even maligned his moral character, which had 



FKANCKE. 



93 



hitherto stood above reproach. It was a grave question 
at the hostile universities whether the term Beatua 
Spener could be used of him. Professor Teck, of Ko- 
stock, published a work On the Happiness of those who 
die in the Lord^ in which he decided that heaven will 
open its gates sometimes to the extremely impious who 
die without any external mark of repentance, and also 
to those who die in gross sin ; but not to such a man as 
Spener. 

The University of Halle was founded for the avowed 
pm'pose of promoting personal piety, scriptural knowl- 
edge, and practical preaching throughout the land. It 
had already been a place of instruction, but not of theo- 
logical training. The theological faculty was composed 
of Francke, Anton, and Breithaupt. These men were 
deeply imbued with the fervid zeal of Spener, and set 
themselves to work to improve and continue what he 
had inaugurated. The field was ample, but the task 
was arduous. While Spener lived at Dresden, Francke, 
who taught at Leipsic, enjoyed a brief personal inter- 
course with him, and became thoroughly animated with 
his spirit. On his return to Leipsic, he commenced 
exegetical lectures on various parts of the Bible, and 
instituted Collegia Pietatis for such students as felt 
disposed to attend them. So great was the increase of 
attendance, both at the lectures and also at the meet- 
ings, that Francke was suspended and Pietism for- 
bidden. It was, therefore, with a wounded and injured 
spirit that he availed himself of the privilege afforded 
in the new seat of learning. 

Francke was naturally an impulsive man, and his 
ardent temperament led him sometimes into unintended 
vagaries. An extravagance of his once caused Spener 
to remark, that " his friends gave him more trouble than 

8 



94 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



all liis enemies." But lie was not more erroneous tlian 
most men of the same type of character ; and tliere is 
not a real moral or intellectual blemish upon his repu- 
tation. His aim was fixed when he commenced to teacL 
at Halle; and he prosecuted it with, undivided assiduity 
imtil the close of his useful life. The story of his con- 
version is beautifully told in his own language. Like 
Chalmers, he was a minister to others before his own 
heart was changed. He was about to preach from the 
words, " But these are written, that ye might believe 
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that be- 
lieving ye might have life through his name." He says : 
" My whole former life came before my eyes just as one 
sees a whole city from a lofty spire. At first it seemed 
as if I could number all my sins ; but soon there opened 
the great fountain of them — my own blind unbelief, 
which had so long deceived me ; I was terrified with 
my lost condition, and wondered if God were merciful 
enough to bless me. I kneeled down and prayed. All 
doubt vanished ; I was assured in my own heart of the 
grace of God in Christ. Now I know him, not alone as 
my God but as my Father. All melancholy and unrest 
vanished, and I was so overcome with joy, that from the 
fullness of my heaii; I could praise my Saviour. With 
great sorrow I had kneeled; but with wonderful 
ecstacy I had risen up. It seemed to me as if my whole 
previous life had been a deep sleep, as if I had only 
been dreaming, and now for the first time had waked up. 
I was convinced that the whole world, wdth all its tempo- 
ral joy, could not kindle up such pleasure in my breast." 

A few days afterwards he preached from the same 
text as before. The sermon w^as the first real one 
that he had preached. Henceforth his heart was in the 
work for which God had chosen him. 



THE ORPHAN HOUSE AT HALLE. 



95 



He preacLed in Halle statedly, for, in addition to the 
duties of the professor's chair, he was pastor of a church. 
His ministrations in the pulpit became extremely popu- 
lar and attractive. Naturally eloquent, he won the 
masses to his ministry ; and by his forcible presentation 
of truth he molded them into his own methods of faith 
and thought. ISTor was he less zealous or successful in 
his theological lectures. He commenced them in 1698, 
by a course on the Introduction to the Old Testament^ 
concluding with a second one on the New Testament. 

In 1712, he published his Hermeneutical Lectures^ 
containing his comments on sections and books of Scrip- 
ture, particularly on the Psalms and the Gospel of John. 
In his early life he had observed the dearth of lectures 
on the Scriptures ; and he accordingly applied himself 
to remedy the evil. His principles of instruction were, 
first^ that the student be converted before he be trained 
for the ministry, otherwise his theology would be merely 
a sacred philosophy— ^A^7^?cy<9J9A^a de rebus sacris ; sec- 
ond, that he be thoroughly taught in the Bible, for " a 
theologian is bom in the Scriptures." His Method of 
Theological Study produced a profound impression, and 
was the means of regenerating the prevailing system 
of theological instruction at the universities. 

But Francke is chiefly known to the present gener- 
ation by his foundation of the Orphan House at Halle. 
This institution was the outgrowth of his truly practical 
and beneficent character ; and from his day to the pres- 
ent, it has stood a monument of his strong faith and 
great humanity. Its origin was entirely providential. 
It was already a custom in Halle for the poor to con- 
vene every week at a stated time, and receive the alms 
which had been contributed for their support. Francke 
saw their weekly gatherings, and resolved to improve 



96 



mSTOEY OF BATIONALISM. 



the occasion by religious teaching. But their children 
were also ignorant, and there was no hope that the 
parents would be able to educate them. So he resolved 
to do something also in this direction, and secured some 
money for this purpose. But yet the parents did not 
thus apply it ; whereupon he placed a box in his own 
dwelling, that all who visited him might contribute. 
He knew that then he would have the personal distri- 
bution of such funds. During three months one person 
deposited four thalers and sixteen groschen ; when 
Francke exclaimed, " That is a noble thing — something 
good must be established — with this money I will found 
a school." Two thalers were spent for tweDty-seven 
books ; but the children brought back only four out of 
the whole number that they had taken home. New 
books were bought, and henceforth it was required that 
they be left in the room. At first Francke's own study 
was the book depository and school-room; but in a 
short time his pupils so greatly increased that he 
hired adjacent accommodations. Voluntary contribu- 
tions came in freely ; new buildings were erected, and 
teachers provided ; and before the death of the founder, 
the enterprise had grown into a mammoth institution, 
celebrated throughout Europe, and scattering the seeds 
of truth into all lands.^ It became a living proof that 
Pietism was not only able to combat the religious errors 

^ Sclimid, GescTiiclite des Fietismus, pp. 290-293. How greatly this 
movement was favored by Providence, may be seen from the Report 
presented to King Frederick "William I, shortly after Francke's death : — 
1. The Formal School with 82 scholars and TO teachers ; 2. The Latin 
School of the Orphan House, with 3 Inspectors, 32 teachers, 400 scholars, 
and 10 servants ; 3. The German Citizens' school, with 4 Inspectors, 102, 
Teachers, 1725 Boys and Girls ; 4. Orphan Children, 134, and 10 overseers ; 

5. Number accommodated at the tables, 251 students, 3600 poor children ; 

6. Furniture, Apothecary, Bookstore, employing 63 persons ; 7. Institution 
for women unable to work. 



i 



SPREAD OF PIETISM. 



91 



of tlie times but also to grapple witli tlie grave wants 
of common life. Is not that a good and safe theology, 
which, in addition to teaching truth, can also clothe the 
naked and feed the hungry ? Francke's prayer, so often 
offered in some secluded corner of the field or the woods, 
was answered even before his departure from labor to 
reward ; " Lord, give me children as plenteous as the 
dew of the morning ; as the sand upon the sea-shore ; 
as the stars in the heavens ; so numerous that I cannot 
number them ! " 

The theological instruction of Francke and his co- 
adjutors in the University of Halle was very influential. 
During the first thirty years of its history six thousand 
and thirty-four theologians were trained within its 
walls, not to speak of the multitudes who received a 
thorough academic and religious instruction in the 
Orphan House. The Oriental Theological College, 
established in connection with the University, promoted 
the study of biblical languages, and originated the first 
critical edition of the Hebrew Bible. Moreover, it 
founded missions to the Jews and Mohammedans. 
From Halle streams of the new life flowed out until 
there were traces of reawakening throughout Europe. 
First, the larger cities gave signs of returning faith ; 
and the universities which were most bitter against 
Spener were influenced by the power of the teachings 
of his immediate successors. Switzerland was one of 
the first countries to adopt Pietism. Zurich, Basle, 
Berne, and all the larger towns received it with glad- 
ness. It penetrated as far east as the provinces border- 
ing on the Baltic Sea, and as far North as Denmark, 
Norway, and Sweden. Many of the Continental courts 
welcomed it, and Orphan Houses, after the model of 
Francke's, became the fasliion of the day. The Re- 



98 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



formed churcli was influenced and impelled by it, and 
even England and the Netherlands indicated a strong 
sympathy for its practical and evangelical features. No 
higher tribute can be paid it than that of Tholuck, who 
avers, " that the Protestant church of Germany has never 
possessed so many zealous Christian ministers and lay- 
men as in the first forty years of the eighteenth century r 
There are two names intimately connected with 
Pietism in its better days, which it would be improper 
to pass over. Arnold, the historian of Pietism, and 
Thomasius, the eminent jurist. They were both alike 
dangerous to the very cause they sought to befriend. 
The former, in his History of Churches and Heretics^ 
took such decided ground against the existing church 
system that he was fairly charged with being a Separa- 
tist. He attached but little importance to dogmatics, 
despised orthodoxy, and inveighed against the church 
as if she were the veriest pest in the land. While a 
student at Wittenberg he applied himself to the study 
of Mysticism, and now claimed that its incorporation 
with Pietism was the only salvation of Christianity. 
He held that great sins had existed in the church ever 
since the days of the Apostles, the first century being 
the only period when it enjoyed comparative purity. 
Thomasius, very naturally, held Arnold in high esteem, 
and lauded his services in the following language : " He 
is the only man, or at least the first, who has avoided 
the follies into which others have fallen, and discov- 
ered and fully exposed the errors which have been 
especially committed by the Englishm'an Cave ; he has 
maintained that the Church of Christ, with respect to 
life and conduct, had begun to fall into decay imme- 
diately after the ascension of our Saviour, and still 
more after the death of the Apostles, and that this 



THOMASIUS. 



99 



degeneracy had enormously increased since the age of 
Constantine the Great." ^ 

Thomasius, though not personally connected with 
Pietism, gave it all his influence. He was Director of 
the University of Halle, and defended the Pietists from 
the standpoint of statesmanship. He believed Pietism 
the only means of uprooting the long-existing corrup- 
tions of education, society, and religion. He opposed 
the custom of teaching and lecturing in Latin, warmly 
advocating the use of French, and subsequently of Ger- 
man. He wished to cultivate the German spirit, and 
spared no pains to accomplish his purpose. While yet 
a teacher at Leipzig he announced a course of lectures 
to be delivered in the German language. The outcry 
was great against him ; but he persevered, and hence- 
forth delivered all his lectures in his mother tongue. 
Since his time the use of Latin, as a colloquial, has 
gradually decreased, and at the present day the German 
is the chief language employed at the universities. 
Thomasius was also the first to combat the system of 
prosecutions for witchcraft, and the application of tor- 
ture in criminal trials. He was a thorough and indefati- 
gable reformer. His name was a tower of strength in 
his generation ; and he left a vivid impress upon the 
German mind of the eighteenth century. He published 
many works, some of which were directed against the 
ministry because of their neglect of duty. 

A new generation of professors arose in Halle. 
C. B. Michaelis, the younger Francke, Freilinghausen, 
the elder Knapp, Callenberg, and Baumgarten, took the 
place of their more vigorous predecessors. It is de- 
plorable to see how Pietism now began to lose its first 
power and earnest spirit. The persistent inquiry into 

^ Schmid, Geschichte des Pietismus, pp. 475-486. 



L.of C. 



100 



HISTORY OF ]lATIONALIS:\r. 



scriptural truth j^assed over into a tacit acquiescence of 
the understanding. Reliance ^vas placed on the convic- 
tions, more than on the fruits of study. Spener had 
blended the emotions of the mind and heart, reason and 
faith, harmoniously ; but the l^tei* Pietists cast off the 
former and blindly followed the latter. Hence tlie}' 
soon found themselves indulging in superstition, and 
repeating many of the en'ors of some of the most de- 
luded Mystics. Science was frowned upon, because 
of its supposed conflict with the letter of Scripture. 
The language of Spener and Francke, which was full 
of practical earnestness, came into disuse. Definitions 
became loose and vague. The Collegia^ which had done 
so much good, now grew formal, cold, and disputatious. 
The missions, which had begun very auspiciously, dwin- 
dled from want of means and men. External life be- 
came Pharisaical. Great weight was attached to long 
prayers. A Duke of Coburg required the masters of 
schools to utter a long prayer in his presence, as a test 
of fitness for advancement. Pietism grew mystical, 
ascetic, and superstitious. Some of its advocates and 
votaries made great pretensions to holiness and unusual 
gifts. This had a tendency to bring the system into 
disrepute in certain quarters, though the good influences 
that it had exerted still existed and increased. It 
might disappear, but the good achieved by it would 
live after it. But a strong effort was made by Frederic 
William I. to maintain its prominence and weight 
From 1729 to 1736, he continued his edict that no Luther- 
an theologian should be appointed in a Prussian pulpit 
who had not studied at least two years in Halle, and re- 
ceived from the faculty a testimonial of his state of grace. 
But when he was succeeded by Frederic II., commonly 
called Frederic the Great, that University no longer en 



BENGEL. 



101 



joyed the royal patronage, and Halle, instead of being 
the school of practical piety and scriptural study, de- 
generated into a seminaiy of Rationalism. 

It was charged against the Pietists that they wrote 
but little. Writing was not their mission. It was 
theirs to act, to reform the practical life and faith of the 
people, not to waste all their strength in a war of 
books. They wrote what they needed to carry out 
fcheir lofty aim ; and this was, perhaps, sufficient. They 
did lack profundity of thought ; but, let it be remem- 
bered that their work was restorative, not initial. 
Pietism, though it ceased its aggressive power after 
Francke and Thomasius, was destined to exert a repro- 
ductive power long afterwards. From their day to the 
present, whenever there has arisen a great religious 
want, the heart of the people has been directed toward 
this same agency as a ground of hope. Whatever be 
said against it, it cannot be denied that it has succeeded 
in finding a safe lodgment in the affections of the evan- 
gelical portion of the German church. 

Witness Bengel, who was a Pietist of the Spener 
school. He was warmly devoted to the spread of prac- 
tical truth and a correct understanding of the Bible. 
Kahnis says of him : " We might indeed call conscien- 
tiousness the fundamental virtue of Bengel. Whatever 
lie utters, be it in science, or life, is more mature, more 
well-weighed, more pithy, more consecrated than most 
of what his verbose age has uttered. In the great he 
saw the little, in the little the great." In the nine- 
teenth century the church had recourse to Pietism as 
its only relief from a devastating Rationalism ; not the 
Pietism of Spener and Francke, we acknowledge, but 
the same general current belonging to both. Its organ 
was the Evangelical Church Gazette, in 1827, and among 



102 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



the celebrities wlio attached themselves to it we find 
the names of Heinroth, von Meyer, Schubert, von Eau- 
mer, Steffens, Schnorr, and Olivier. 

Pietism lacked a homogeneous race of teachers. 
Here lay the secret of its overthrow. Had the founders 
been succeeded by men of much the same spirit, and 
equally strong intellect, its existence would have been 
guaranteed, as far as anything religious can be promised 
in a country where there is a state church to control 
the individual conscience. The great mistake of Luther- 
anism was in failing to adopt it as its child. The skepti- 
cal germ which soon afterward took root, gave evidence 
that it could prove its overthrow for a time, at least ; 
but the evils of Rationalism were partially anticipated 
by the practical teachings of the Pietists. Rationalism 
in Germany, without Pietism as its forerunner, would 
have been fatal for centuries. But the relation of these 
tendencies, so plainly seen in the ecclesiastical history 
of Germany, is one of long standing. From the days 
of Neo-Platonism to the present they have existed, the 
good to balance the evil, Faith to limit Reason. They 
have been called by different names ; but Christianity 
could little afford to do without it or its equivalent, in 
the past ; and the Church of the Future will still cling 
as tenaciously and fondly to it or to its representative. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE POPULAK PHILOSOPHY OF WOLFF— SKEPTICAL TEN- 
DENCIES FROM ABROAD. 

The struggle between tlie Pietists and the Orthodox 
subsided on the appearance of Wolff's demonstrative 
philosophy. The church was glad enough to offer the 
friendly hand to Pietism when she saw her faith threat- 
ened by this ruthless foe ; and if the followers of Spener 
had refused to accept it, their success would have been 
far more probable. Leibnitz was the father of Wolff's 
system. Descartes had protested against any external 
authority for the first principles of belief Leibnitz and 
Spinoza followed him, though in different directions.^ 
Leibnitz had no system in reality, and it is only from 
certain well-known views on particular points that we 
can infer his general direction of opinion. He sought 
to prove the conformity of reason with a belief in reve- 
lation on the principle that two truths cannot contradict 
each other. His doctrine of monads and preestablished 
harmony was opposed to the scriptural and ecclesiasti- 
cal doctrine of creation, inasmuch as by the assumption 
of the existence of atoms the Creator was thrown too 
much in the shade.^ He wrote his TModicee for the 
benefit of learned and theological circles, and both as a 

^ Farrar, Critical History of Free Thought^ p. 214. 
* Hagenbach, History of Doctrines^ vol. 2, p. 340. 



104 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



statesman ami author "he acquired great celebrity foi 
his vast acquirements and discriminating mind. 

But the philosophy of Leibnitz was confined to the 
learned ; and had it been left solely to itself, it is prob- 
able that it would never have attracted great attention 
or possessed much importance in the history of thought. 
But Wolff, who studied all his works with the greatest 
care, deduced from them cei^tain summaries of argu- 
ment, which, with such others of his own as he felt dis- 
posed to incorporate with them, he published and 
taught. Whatever censure we may cast upon Wolff, 
we cannot ignore his good intentions. Even before his 
birth, he had been consecrated by his father to the 
service of God ; and when he was old enough to mani- 
fest his own taste, he showed a strong predilection for 
theological study. He says of himself : " Having been 
devoted to the study of theology by a vow, I also had 
chosen it for myself ; and my intention has all along 
been to serve God in the ministry, even when I was 
already professor at Halle, until at length against my 
will I was led away from it, God having arranged cir- 
cumstances in such a manner that I could not carry out 
this intention. But having lived in my native place, 
Breslau, among the Catholics, and having perceived 
from my very childhood the zeal of the Lutherans and 
Roman Catholics against one another, the idea was 
always agitating my mind, whether it would not be 
possible so distinctly to show the truth in theology that 
it would not admit of any contradiction. When after- 
wards I learned that the mathematicians were so sure 
of their ground that every one must acknowledge it to 
be true, I was anxious to study mathematics, for the 
sake of the method, in order to give diligence to reduce 
theology to incontrovertible certainty." These words 



Wolff's philosopht. 



105 



explain WolflPs whole system. He would make doctrine 
so plain by mathematical demonstration that it must 
be accepted. But the poison of his theory lay in the 
assumption that what could not be mathematically 
demonstrated was either not true or not fit to be taught. 
He sets out with the principle that the human intellect 
is capable of knowing truth. He divides his philosophy 
into two parts : first^ the theoretical : second^ the prac- 
tical. The former he subdivides into logic, metaphysics, 
and physics ; the latter into morals, natural right, and 
politics. He admits a revelation, and proves its possi- 
bility by maintaining that God can do whatever he 
wishes. But this revelation must have signs in itself, 
by which it may be known. Fi^'st It must contain 
something necessary for man to know, which he cannot 
learn in any other way. Second. The things revealed 
must not be opposed to the divine perfections, and they 
must not be self-contradictory : a thing is above reason 
and contrary to reason when opposed to these prin- 
ciples. Third. A divine revelation can contain neither 
anything which contradicts reason and experience, nor 
anything which may be learned from them, for God is 
omniscient, — he knows the general as well as the partic- 
ular, and he cannot be deceived. Necessary truths are 
those the contrary of which is impossible ; accidental 
truths, those of which the contrary is impossible only 
under certain conditions. Now, revelation could not 
contradict necessary truths ; but it may appear to con- 
tradict those which are accidental. Geometrical truths 
are necessary ; and thei'efore revelation could not oppose 
them ; but as accidental truths refer to the changes of 
natural things, it follows that these may be apparently 
contradicted by revelation ; though if we search 
minutely, we shall at last be able to lift the veil from 



106 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



the contradictions. Fourth, Revelation cannot com- 
mand anything contrary to the laws of the nature of 
existence and of the mind, for whatever is opposed to 
the laws of nature is equally opposed to those of reason. 
Fifth. When it can be proved that he who declares that 
he has received a divine revelation has arrived at his 
knowledge by the natural use of his mental powers, 
then his declaration cannot be considered true. Sixth, 
In a revelation all things ought to be expressed in such 
words, or by such signs, that he who is the object of it 
can clearly recognize the divine action. For God knows 
all possible symbolical means of knowledge, and does 
nothing without a purpose. 

These views Wolff taught from his university-chair - 
in Halle, and disseminated throughout the land in pub- 
lications under various titles. He aimed to reach not 
only the young theologians and all who were likely to 
wield a great public influence, but to so popularize his 
system that the unthinking masses might become his 
followers. He succeeded. Even Roman Catholics em- 
braced his tenets, and he was accustomed to say, with 
evident satisfaction, that his text-books were used at 
Ingolstadt, Vienna, and Rome. The glaring defect of 
his philosophy was his application of the formal logical 
process to theology. He reduced the examination of 
truth to a purely mechanical operation. The effect was 
soon seen. When his students began to fill the pulpits 
the people heard cold and stately logic, extended defini- 
tions, and frequent mathematical phrases. Think of 
the clergy feeding their flocks on such food as the fol- 
lowing : " God — a heing who suppai^ts all the world at 
one time " P reestablished harmony — the eternal union 
of things I " " Ratio sufficiens — the sufficient ground ; " 
with many other arid definitions of the same class. 



WOLFF. 



One preaclier, in explaining the eightli cliaj>ter of Mat- 
thew, thought it necessary, when noticing the fact of 
Jesus descending the mountain, to define the term 
mountain by declaring it to be " a very elevated place ; " 
and, when discoursing on Jesus stretching forth his 
hand and touching the leper, to affirm that " the hand 
is one of the members of the body." It is astonishing 
how quickly the popular principles and teachings 
of the followers of Wolff began to supplant Pietism. 
In the university and the pulpit there were sad and 
numerous evidences of decline. Perhaps no system of 
philosophy has ever penetrated the masses as did this of 
Wolff; for no one has been more favored with cham- 
pions who aimed to indoctrinate the unthinking. Old 
terms, which had been used by the first Lutherans and 
Keformed in common, and by the Pietists with such 
effectiveness, were now abandoned for the modem 
ones of these innovators. Everything that had age 
on its side was rejected because of its age. Even the 
titles of books were fraught with copious definitions. 
The Wertheim translation of the Old Testament was 
published under the extended name of " The Divine 
Writings before the time of Jems, the Messiah. The 
First Part, containing the Laws of the Israels^ The 
Wolffian adepts wrote for Moabites, Moabs ; for the 
Apostle Peter, Peter the Ambassador. 

Wolff's life was full of incident. The first publicar 
tions he issued after his appointment to the math- 
ematical professorship were on subjects within his 
appropriate sphere of instruction. Here he first ac 
quired his fundamental principle of mathematical de- 
monstration applied to theology, and henceforth his mind 
was bent on philosophical and^theological themes. We 
are reminded of the same process of mental action in 



108 



lUSTOliY OF ]IAT10XAL183I. 



Bishop Colenso. In a full catalogue of bis works 
we have counted twelve mathematical text-books. 
These are at least an index of his attachment to 
mathematical demonstration ; and it is not surprising 
that an ill-regulated mind should fall into Wolflfs error 
of applying the same method to the Scriptures. The 
Bishop's works find their exact j^rototype in the " Reor 
sonahle TTiouglits of God,^' ^'Natural Theology and 
Moral Pliilosopliy'' of Christian Wolif. The mathe- 
matical professor at Halle was not long in exposing his 
views ; and on more than one occasion gave umbrage 
to his Pietistic associates. His offence reached its 
climax when he delivered a public discourse on the 
Morals of Confucius, which he applauded most enthu- 
siastically. The Eector of the university, Francke, re- 
quested the use of the manuscript, which the author 
refused to grant. Influence was brought to bear against 
Wolff at court ; and when it was represented that if his 
teachings were propagated any further they would pro. 
duce defection in the army, Frederic William I. issued a 
decree of deposition from his chair, and banishment from 
his dominions within forty-eight hours, on penalty of 
death. This occurred in 1723. After Frederic the 
Great ascended the throne, and began to countenance 
the increasing skeptical tendencies of the day, he re- 
called him, in 1740, to his former position. He was re- 
ceived, it is true, with some enthusiasm, but his success 
as a lecturer and preacher had passed its zenith. Of 
his reception at Halle after his long absence he thuy 
writes, with no little sense of self-gratulation : " A great 
multitude of students rode out of the city to meet me, 
in order to invite me formally. They were attended 
by six glittering postillions. All the villagers along 
the roadside came out of their towns, and anxiously 



Wolff's influence. 



109 



awaited my arrival. Wlien we reached Halle, all the 
streets and market-places were filled with an immense 
concourse of people, and I celebrated my jubilee amidst 
a universal jubilee. In the street, opposite the house 
which I had rented as my place of residence, there was 
gathered a band of music, which received me and my 
attendants with joyous strains. The press of the mul- 
titude was so great that I could hardly descend from 
my carriage and find my way to my rooms. My arrival 
was announced on the same evening to the professors 
and all the dignitaries of the city. On the following- 
day they called upon me, and gave me warm greetings 
of welcome and esteem. Among all the rest I was re- 
ceived and welcomed by Dr. Lange, who wished me the 
greatest success, and assured me of his friendship ; of 
course I promised to visit him in return." 

Verily this was an epoch in theological history. 
It proves how thoroughly the Wolffian philosophy had 
impregnated the common classes. They had learned its 
principles thoroughly, and the lapse of more than a cen- 
tury has not fully disabused them of its errors. The phi- 
losophy of Kant was the first to supplant the Wolffian 
in learned circles ; but Kant has had no such popular 
interpreter as Wolff was of Leibnitz, and hence his influ- 
ence, though deep where prevalent, was felt in a more 
limited sphere. Wolff cannot be termed a Eationalist 
in the common acceptation of the term, though his doc- 
trines contributed to the growth of neological thinking. 
Had he been theologian alone, and applied his prin- 
ciples to the interpretation of Scripture, he would have 
done much of Sender's work. It was, therefore, the 
latter and not the former whom we would denominate 
the father of Eationalism. Moreover, Wolff manifested 
a strict observance of the ecclesiastical institutions of 

9 



110 



JTISTOliY OF NATIONALISM. 



his day, and always professed the warmest attachment 
to tlie church, — which was anything but the fact, as 
far as the followers of Semler are concerned. Wolff 
wrote on a circular announcing some university celebrar 
tion the following words, which indicate the habit 
of his life : " I see, and would like to be present. Yet 
as I have purposed to partake of the Lord's Supper on 
the same day I do not know whether I shall be able to 
be present, inasmuch as I should not like to change my 
intention ; yet I will consider the matter with my min- 
ister. Signed, Christian Wolff, 1 1 1 7." 

Of the relations of the Wolffian philosophy to the 
theology of a half century later, and of its general Iln- 
tionalistic bearing, Mi*. Farrar says : ^' The system soon 
became universally dominant. Its ordei-ly method 
possessed the fascination which belongs to any encyclo- 
paedic view of human knowledge. It coincided, too, 
with the tone of the age. Really opposed, as Carte- 
sianism has been in France, to the scholasticism which 
still reigned, its dogmatic form nevertheless bore such 
external similarity to it that it fell in with the old litei-- 
ary tastes. The evil effects which it subsequently pro- 
duced in reference to religion were due only to the 
point of view which it ultimately induced. Like 
Locke's work on the reasonableness of Christianity, it 
stimulated intellectual speculation concerning revela- 
tion. By suggesting attempts to deduce d pi^iori the 
necessary character of religious truths, it turned men's 
attention more than ever away from spiritual religion 
to theology. The attempt to demonstrate everything 
caused dogmas to be viewed apart from their practical 
aspect ; and men being compelled to discard the pre- 
vious method of drawing philosophy out of Scripture, 
an independent philosophy was created, and Scripture 



THE WOLFFIAN SCHOOL. 



Ill 



compared with its discoveries. Philosophy no longer 
relied on Scripture, but Scripture rested on philosophy. 
Dogmatic theology was made a part of metaphysical 
philosophy. This was the mode in which Wolff's phi- 
losophy ministered indirectly to the creation of the dis- 
position to make scriptural dogmas submit to reason, 
which was denominated Kationalism. The empire of 
it was undisputed during the whole of the middle part 
of the century, until it was expelled,- toward the close, 
by the partial introduction of Locke's philosophy, and 
of the system of Kant, as well as by the growth of 
classical erudition, and of a native literature."^ 

Wolff was succeeded by a school of no ordinary 
ability. But his disciples did not strictly follow him ; 
they went not only the length that he did, but much 
further. Their thinking and literary labor circled 
about inspiration. It was evident that they were intent 
upon solving the problem and handing the doctrine 
over to the world as entitled to respect and unalterable. 
Baumgarten was the connecting link between the Piet- 
ism of Spener and the Rationalism of Semler. He 
was the successor of Wolff in the university-chair of 
Halle, and, as such, the eyes of the people were turned 
toward him. His acquirements were versatile, for he 
studied every subject of theology with poetic enthusiasm. 
Nor was he a superficial student merely ; and his oppo- 
nents well knew that in him they had found no mean 
adept in philosophy, theology, hermeneutics and ecclesias- 
tical history. His writings bear a strong impress of Illu- 
minism, but he contributed most to the formation of 
Rationalistic theology by training Semler for his great 
destructive mission. He acknowledged the presence of 
the Holy Spirit in Scripture, but reduced inspiration to 

* Critical History of Free Thought, pp. 216, 216. 



112 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



an influence which God exercises over the mental facol- 
ties. Both he and Tollner declared that the Spirit had 
permitted each writer to compose according to the pe- 
culiar powers of his mind, and to arrange facts accord- 
ing to his own comprehension of them. 

Tollner was a follower of Baumgarten. He was not 
intent upon any innovating theories as much as he was 
desirous to harmonize the old ecclesiastical system with 
the new philosophy. He had some views in common 
with WolflP; but he totally differed from him in his con- 
ception of mathematical demonstration of theology, and 
maintained that theology cannot be mathematically 
demonstrated, but that its integrity and worth depend 
solely upon historical testimony. Does the Christian 
system have the authority of history for its defence ? 
If so, it will stand the test of universal opposition ; 
but, if not, it will fall of its own weight. The ten- 
dency of his deductions was negative, and hence we 
rank him as no ordinary agent toward the growth of 
historic doubt. Here we behold the germ of such 
thinking as developed in Strauss' Life of Jesiis in the 
nineteenth century. Tollner held that Scripture is 
composed of two senses, the natural and revealed. That 
which is natural is subject to criticism ; but the reveal- 
ed or spiritual light is always clearer, and does not call 
for much inquiry. There may be differences between 
the two, but there can be no contradiction. " The revela- 
tion in Scripture," he says, " is a greater and more per- 
fect means of salvation. Both the natural light and 
revelation lead the man who follows them to salvation. 
Scripture only more so^ 

The historian cannot fail to observe a systematic and 
steadfast development of skepticism in the lands south 
and west of Germany. Many causes contributed to its 



ENGLISH DEISM. 



113 



growth in Italy, whose prestige in war, extensive and 
still increasing commerce, and ambitious and gifted 
rulers, were a powerful stimulus to vigorous thought. 
The classics became the favorite study, and all the 
writings of the ancients were seized with avidity, 
to yield, as far as they might, their treasure of philoso- 

I phy, history and poetry. Leo X. was notoriously skep- 
tical, and, as much from sympathy as pride, surrounded 

j - himself with the leading spirits of the literature of 
the times. With him morality was no recommenda- 
tion. Two tendencies took positive form, as the result 
of the literary tastes of the court and thinking classes : 
f/)'St^ a return to heathenism, produced by the study of 
the classics ; and second^ a species of pantheism, produced 
by philosophy. 

We now come to the Deism of England, which not 
only succeeded in corrupting the spiritual life of France, 
but became directly incorporated into the theology of 
Germany. It was the so-called philosophy of common 
sense. The most thorough German writer on the 
subject, Lechler, has well defined it, "The elevation 
of natural religion to be the standard and rule of all 
positive religion, an elevation which is supported by 
free examination by means of thinking." It started 
on the principle that reason is the source and meas- 
ure of truth ; and therefore discarded, as its Rational^ 
istic offepring in Germany, whatever was miraculous or 
supernatural in Christianity. There was much earnest- 
ness in some of its champions ; nor was there any ab- 
sence of warm attachment to the morality and religious 
influence of the Scriptures. Thus it differed widely from 
the flippancy and frivolity of the Deists of France. 
We cannot, however, consider Lord Herbert's serious 
reflections on the publication of his chief work as a fair 



114 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 

specimen of the tone of his coadjutors. They were 
mostly inferior to him in this respect, though it would 
not be safe to say that their influence on the public 
mind of England was less baneful than his. Having 
finished his book, Tractatus de Veritate^ he hesitated be- 
fore committing it to the press. Thus filled," he says, 
" with doubts, I was on a bright summer day sitting in 
my room ; my window to the south was open ; the sun 
shone brightly ; not a breeze was stirring. I took my 
book on Truth into my hand, threw myself on my 
knees, and prayed devoutly in the words, * O thou one 
God, thou Author of this light which now shines upon 
me, thou Giver of all inward light, I implore thee, ac- 
cording to thine infinite mercy to pardon my request, 
which is greater than a sinner should make. I am not 
sufficiently convinced whether I may publish this book 
or not. If its publication shall be for thy glory, I be- 
seech thee to give me a sign from Heaven. If not, I 
will suppress it.- I had scarcely finished these words 
vs'hen a loud, and yet at the same time a gentle sound 
came from heaven, not like any sound on earth. This 
comforted me in such a manner, and gave me such a 
satisfaction, that I considered my prayer as having been 
heard." 

Deism in England began with the predominance 
given to nature by Bacon. Locke contributed greatly 
to its formation by discarding the proof of Christianity 
by miracles and supernatural observations, but claimed 
that nature is of itself sufficient to teach it. Hence^ 
man can draw all necessary faith from nature. Lord 
Herbert, of Cherbury, held that education is inconsistent 
with true religion, since the earliest pagan times mani- 
fested a higher state of morality than later periods of cul- 
ture and refinement. Hobbes considered religion only 



ENGLISH DEISTS. 



115 



a sort of police force, useful solely as an agent of the 
State to keep the people within bounds. 

Shaftesbury, the disciple and follower of Locke, ad- 
dressed himself by his style to the higher classes. He 
cultivated the acquaintance of the rising leaders of 
skepticism in France and Holland, and continued 
through life on terms of cordial intimacy with Bayle, 
Le Clerc, and others of kindred spirit. He was relent- 
less in his attacks on revealed religion. His hostility 
may be inferred from the fact that Voltaire termed 
him even too bitter an opponent of Christianity. 
Warburton says, " Mr. Pope told me that, to his knowl- 
edge, The Characteristics have done more harm to re- 
vealed religion in England than all the other works 
of infidelity together." Collins contributed more than 
any other author to the rise of Deism in France. He 
applied himself to the overthrow of all faith. Ig- 
noring prophecy, he held that nothing in the Old 
Testament has any other than a typical or allegorical 
bearing upon the ^sTew Testament. 

Wollaston's creed was the pursuit of happiness by 
the practice of reason and truth. He was the epicurean 
of the system which he adopted, and sought to prove 
that religion is wholly independent of faith. He first 
published a brief outline of his views in a limited num- 
ber of copies, but afterward prepared a new and en- 
larged edition. Twenty thousand copies were sold, and 
six other editions found a ready sale between 1724 and 
1738. Woolston strove to bring the miracles of Christ 
into contempt. Mandeville and Morgan, contemporaries 
of Woolston, wrote against the state religion. Of Chubb's 
views we can gather sufficiently from his three princi- 
ples : First, That Christ requires of men that, with all 
their heart and all their soul, they should follow the 



116 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



eternal and unchangeable precepts of natural morality. 
Second, That men, if they transgress the laws of moral 
ity, must give proofs of true and genuine repentance, 
because without such repentance, forgiveness or pardon 
is impossible. Third, In order more deeply to imprests 
these principles upon the minds of men, and give them 
a greater influence upon their course of action, Jesus 
Christ has announced to mankind, that God hath ap- 
pointed a day wherein he will judge the world in 
righteousness, and acquit and condemn, reward or pun- 
ish, according as their conduct has been guided by the 
precepts which he has laid down. With Bolingbroke's 
name closes the succession of the elder school of Eng. 
lish Deists. He wrote against the antiquity of faith, 
showing bitter hostility to the Old Testament. His aim, 
in addition to this antagonism to revelation, was to found 
a selfish philosophy. 

Many of the works by these writers were ill-writ- 
ten and lacked depth of thought. Some were, how- 
ever, masterpieces of original thinking and writing. 
The style of Mandeville, for example, has been 
eulogized extravagantly both by Hazlitt and Lord 
Macaulay. 

It cannot be expected that a movement so extensive 
as this, and participated in by the leading literary men 
of the day would be without its influence abroad. Its 
first effect was to elicit great opposition ; and numerous 
replies poured in from every quarter. Toland's Chris- 
tianity Not Mysterious was combated in the year 
1760 by fifty-four rejoinders in England, France, and 
Germany. Up to the same period, Tindal's Christianity 
as Old as the World was greeted with one hundred and 
six opponents. The Germans repulsed these tendencies 
bravely at first, and among others was the gifted and 



ENGLISH DEISM IN FEANCE. 



117 



versatile Mosheim, who delivered public lectures against 
the influx of Deistical speculations. But gradually 
translations were made, and the Germans were soon 
able to read those works for themselves. All the 
Deists were rendered into their language, and some 
were honored with many translators. True, there 
were replies from the theologians of England imme- 
diately upon the appearance of the works of the lead- 
ing Deists; but many of them were very feeble, the 
puny blows doing more harm than good. When these 
rejoinders came to be translated they had almost as de- 
leterious an influence as if they had been panegyrics in- 
stead of well-meant thrusts. John Pye Smith says, 
"Translations were made of our Deistical writers of 
that time, and of a large number of vindications of 
Christianity which were published by some English di- 
vines of note in reply to Collins, Tindal, Morgan and their 
tribe ; and which, in addition to their insipid and un- 
impassioned character, involved so much of timid apology 
and unchristian concession that they rather aided than 
obstructed the progress of infidelity." Through the in- 
fluence of Baumgarten and others Deism now gained 
great favor in Germany. Toland was personally wel- 
comed, flattered and honored at the very court — that of 
Frederic William I. — which had banished Wolff, and 
made adherence to his doctrines a bar to all preferment. 

There was a speedy adoption of English Deism by 
France, though the French had manifested strong at- 
tachment to skepticism as far back as the illustrious 
reign of Louis XIV., whose court had dictated religion 
and literature to Europe. It was in 1688 that Le 
Vassor wrote: "People only speak of reason, good taste, 
the force of intellect, of the advantage of those who 
put themselves above the prejudices of education and 



118 



HISTOKY OF EATIONALISM. 



of the society in which they were born. Pyrrhonism 
is now the fashion above everything else. People think 
that the legitimate exercise of the mind consists in not 
believing rashly, and in knowing how to doubt many 
things. What can be more intolerable and humiliating 
than to see our pretended great men boast themselves 
of believing nothing, and of calling those people simple 
and credulous who have not perhaps examined the first 
proofs of religion ? " The condition of things was no 
better in the reign of Louis XV., nor indeed at any time 
during the eighteenth century. It could not be ex- 
pected that Rousseau would overpaint the picture ; yet 
in his La Nouvelle Helolse we find this language : " No 
disputing is here heard — that is, in the literary coteries — 
no epigrams are made ; they reason, but not in the stiff 
professional tone ; you find fine jokes without puns, wit 
with reason, principles with freaks, sharp satire and 
delicate flattery with serious I'ules of morality. They 
speak of everything in order that every one may have 
to say something, but they never exhaust the questions 
raised ; from the dread of getting tedious they bring 
them forth only occasionally, shorten them hastily, and 
never allow a dispute to arise. Every one informs 
himself, enjoys himself, and departs from the others 
pleased. But what is it that is learned from these inter- 
esting conversations? One learns to defend with spirit 
the cause of untruth, to shake with philosophy all the 
principles of virtue, to gloss over with fine syllogisms 
one's passions and prejudices in order to give a modern 
shape to error. When any one speaks, it is to a certain 
extent his dress, not himself, that has an opinion ; and 
the speaker will change it as often as he will change 
his profession. Give him a tie-wig to-day, to-moiTow a 
uniform, and the day after a mitre, and you will have 



VOLTAIRE AND ROUSSEAU. 



119 



him defend, in succession, the laws, despotism, and the 
Inquisition. There is one kind of reason for the lawyer, 
another for the financier, and a third for the soldier. 
Thus, no one ever says what he thinks, but what, on 
account of his interest, he would make others believe ; 
and his zeal for truth is only a mask for selfishness." 

This was the basis upon which Voltaire and Eousseau 
built in France. What wonder that the one with his 
pungent sarcasm, popular style and display of philoso- 
phy, and the other with his morbid sentimentalism, 
should become the real monarchs not only of their own 
land, but of cultivated, circles throughout the Con- 
tinent ? There was not the slightest sympathy be- 
tween these two men, for they hated each other cor- 
dially, and each was jealous of the other's fame and 
genius. Voltaire said one day to Kousseau, who was 
showing him an Ode Addressed to Posterity^ " This is 
a letter which will never reach the place of its addi^ess." 
At another time, Voltaire having read a satire of his 
own composition to Rousseau, the latter advised him 
to " suppress it lest it should be imagined that he had 
lost his abilities and preserved only his virulence." 
But Voltaire was inordinately ambitious ; he longed to 
rise to fame, as on the wings of the eagle. " How un- 
worthy, and how dull of appreciation is sluggish France," 
thought he. For her rewards he had toiled, and 
thought, and racked his brain for years. But she was 
stem, and would not honor him. He therefore became 
di^rgusted witk his native land, and set out for England, 
whose scientific and theological literature had already 
fired his mind. George I. and the Princess of Wales, 
afterward Queen Caroline, distinguished him by their 
attentions, and relieved his poverty by securing large 
subscriptions to his works. It was here that he com- 



120 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



menced to lay up a princely fortune ; but it was not 
until the close of his long and stirring life tliat lie for- 
swore his miserly habits. He found in the deistical lit- 
erature of England everything that could suit his taste 
and ambition. " Here,'' reasoned he to himself, " I find 
what I never dreamed of before. France would not 
tolerate these thoughts if her own sons had given birth 
to them ; but this is England, and we Frenchmen re- 
spect the thinkirg of the English mind. I will not 
translate much, but I will go to work with hearty 
earnestness, and reproduce in French literature what I 
find worthy of it in these free-thinking masters. May 
be, after all, I shall become a great man." The plan 
succeeded. Voltaire, on his return, became more out- 
spoken in his infidelity. His star ascended ; and he 
ruled, not by oiiginal but by borrowed lustre. 

Frederic the Great of Prussia was captivated by the 
skeptical and literary celebrity of Voltaire. The latter 
was not long back again in France before his selfish 
sensitiveness imagined that all the literary men of his 
country had entered into a cabal to deprive him of his 
fame and hurl him from the throne of his literary au- 
thority. He was therefore ready to be caught by the 
most tempting bait ; and when Frederic offered him a 
pension of twenty-two thousand livres, it was more than 
the miserly plagiarist could resist. Of his reception by 
the king he thus speaks in his usual style : "I set out 
for Potsdam in June, 1750. Astolpha did not meet a 
kinder reception in the palace of Alcuia. To be lodged 
in the same apartments that Marshal Saxe had occu- 
pied, to have the royal cooks at my command when I 
chose to dine alone, and the royal coachman when I 
had an inclination to ride, were trifling favors. Our 
suppers were very agreeable. If I am not deceived J 



VOLTAIRE. 



121 



think we had mucli wit. The king was witty, and 
gave occasion of wit to others ; and what is still more 
extraordinary, I never found myself so much at my ease ; 
I worked two hours a day with his majesty ; corrected 
his works ; and never failed highly to praise whatever 
was worthy of praise, though I rejected the dross. I 
gave him details of all that was necessary in rhetoric 
and criticism for his use : he profited by my advice, 
and his genius assisted him more effectually than my 
lessons." 

But matters did not move on a great while thus 
harmoniously, for Voltaire, becoming complicated in 
personal dijfficulties with greater favorites of Frederic, 
received the frown of the man he had so much flat- 
tered, and whose purse had been enriching his coffers. 
The skeptic returned to France, wrote other works, set- 
tled near the romantic shore of Lake Geneva, and re- 
turned honored, great, and feasted to Paris. Indulging 
in unaccustomed excesses, his frail and aged body sank 
beneath the weight. But Frederic and Voltaire main- 
taiaed a correspondence many years after the flatterer's 
disgrace. Full of trouble, haunted by dreams of conspir- 
acy and of poverty, successful in achieving more evil 
than usually falls to the lot of a single mind, Voltaire 
passed from the society of men to the presence of God. 
It has been truthfully said of him in proof of his incon- 
sistency, that he was a free thinker at London, a Carte- 
sian at Versailles, a Christian at Nancy, and an infidel 
at Berlin. 

Rousseau sought to establish the proposition that 
the progress of scientific education has always involved 
the decay of moral education. With Lord Herbert he 
held that barbarism has ever been the condition of 
greatest moral power. A sentiment from his JEmile 



122 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



furnishes tlie key to his creed : " Everything is good 
when it comes forth fi^om the hand of the Creator; 
everything degenerates under man's hand. In the state 
in v^hich things now are, a man who from the moment 
of his birth would live among others, would, if Lift to 
himself, be most disfigured. Prejudices, authority, con- 
straint, example, all social institutions which now de- 
press us, would choke nature in him, and nothing 
would be put in its stead. He would resemble a young 
tree which, growing up accidentally in the street, would 
soon pine away in consequence of the passers-by push- 
ing it from all sides, and bending it in all directions." 
Rousseau wrote with great earnestness, and possessed 
the faculty of inspiring his readers with an enthusiastic 
admiration of his theories. His romances misled many 
thousands, and were the most popular productions of 
his times. Though he and Voltaire were the exponents 
of French Deism, they were greatly aided in the dis- 
semination of skeptical doctrines by Diderot, d'Alem- 
bert, Helvetius, d' Argent, de la Mettrie, and others. 
Bayle, in his Dictionary, appealed to the learned circles ; 
and, not content to give only historical facts, he ven- 
tured upon the origination or reproduction of those new 
skeptical opinions which captivated unthinking multi- 
tudes. 

The Deism of France was now a coadjutor with that 
of England in the devastation of Germany. The throne 
of Frederic II. was the exponent and defender of the 
hollow creed. The military successes of that king gave 
him an authority that few monarchs have been able to 
wield, while his well-known literary taste and capacity 
enlisted the admiration of men of culture throughout 
the Continent. Born to bear the sword, he surprised 
his subjects by the same felicity in the use of the pen ; 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



123 



and the man wlio could leave to Lis successors a treas- 
ury witli a surplus of seventy-two millions of thalers, an 
army of two hundred and twenty thousand men, a 
kingdom increased by twenty-nine thousand square 
miles, and a people grown since his accession from two 
raillions to thrice that number, was not a king who 
could be without great moral weight among his own 
subjects. And it was known that he w^as a skeptic, for 
he made no secret of it. No traces of the old Pietism 
of his harsh father were visible in the son. Gathering 
around him such men as Voltaire, La Mettrie, Mauper- 
tuis, and others whom his gold could attach to him, he 
was the same king in faith and literature that he was in 
politics. Claiming to be a Deist, it is probable that he 
was a veiy liberal one. It is more than likely that he 
was truthfal in his description of himself when he wrote 
to d'Alembert that he had never lived under the same 
roof with religion. He claimed for his meanest sub- 
jects the right to serve God in their own way; but 
all the power of his example was at work in drawing 
the people from the old faith. He hesitated not to 
supplant evangelical professors and pastors by free- 
thinkers, and at any time to bring ridicule on any 
religious fact or custom. That thin-visaged man in top 
boots and cocked hat, surrounded by his infidels and 
his dogs at Sans Souci, dictated faith to Berlin and to 
Europe. He would have no one wdthin the sunshine 
of royalty whom he could not use as he wished ; and 
just as soon as Voltaire would be himself he became 
disgraced. But Frederic lived to see the day when in- 
subordination sprang up in his army, and in many de- 
partments of public life. It came from the abnegation 
of evangelical faith. And it is no wonder that when 
the old king saw the disastrous effects of his own 



124 HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 

theories upon Ms subjects, lie said he would willing- 
ly give his best battle to place his people where he 
found them at his father's death. But the seed had 
been sown, and Prussia was destined to be only a part 
of the harvest-field of tares. 



CHAPTER V. 



SEMLER AJSTD THE DESTRUCTIVE SCHOOL. 
1750—1810. 

The foreign influences being faii'ly introduced, it now 
remained to be seen what course the German church 
would adopt respecting them. The process of incorpo- 
ration was rapid. A remarkable activity of mind was 
observable in the theological world, and men of great 
learning and keen intellect began to apply the deduc- 
tions of foreign naturalism to the sacred oracles. No 
one can claim that the interpretation of the Scriptures 
rested at this time on a pure and solid basis ; and it is 
therefore not remarkable that those men who had no 
special predilection for the doctrine of inspiration should 
silently submit to the views of the orthodox believers 
of their time. The divine origin of Hebrew points and 
accents was rigidly contended for ; and Michaelis only 
fell in with the accustomed current when, in his early 
life, he wrote a work in their defence. The theory that 
errors of transcription might possibly have crept into 
the text, was totally rejected. No such thing could, by 
any contingency, occur. The fable of Aristeas was still 
considered worthy a place in the canon. The sanctity 
of the Hebrew language, and other Rabbinical notions, 
were defended. Christ was discovered in every book 



126 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



of the Old Testament ; tlie perfect purity of the Greek 
of the New Testament was held ; and fabulous accounts 
of early martyrs and miraculous legends were elevated 
to the same standard of authority with the gospels. 
What wonder, then, that when such absurdities were 
entertained by the evangelical portion of the church the 
temptation of others to skepticism was so great ? Men 
like Ernesti could not resist the enticement to combat 
such a state of criticism ; and he gave himself to the 
task with all the ardor of his nature. 

He was the classic scholar of his day. The purity 
of his diction and the fertility of his authorship gained 
him a hearing among the educated and refined. His 
word became law. In his case, as with many others of 
his countrymen both before and after him, his theologi- 
cal tastes gave him far more authority than his merely 
linguistic and literary attainments could have gained 
for him. He was distinguished as a preacher not less 
than as a scholar. Enamored with the old classic times, 
the atmosphere of Greece in her glory of taste and cul- 
ture, and of Rome in her lustre of victory and law made 
him impatient of the dull theology of his day. He 
lived not in Germany, but in the temples and bowers 
of paganism. His Latinity was scarcely inferior to the 
flowing utterances of his heathen masters. He edited 
many classical works, and succeeded in regenerating the 
humanistic studies of Europe. For this all honor be 
given him ; but he did not rest here. He examined 
the New Testament with the critic's scalpel, and applied 
the principles of ordinary interpretation to the word of 
God. He held that Moses should receive no better 
treatment than Cicero or Tacitus. Logos was reason 
and wisdom in the Greek writings ; why should it mean 
Christ or the Word when we find it in the gospel of 



MICHAELIS. 



127 



Jolin? Regeneration need not be surrounded with a 
saintly lialo ; it is absurd to suppose tliat it can mean 
any more than reception into a religious society. The 
Holy Spirit does not communicate divine influences, but 
certain praiseworthy qualities. Unity with the Father 
is mere unity of disposition or will. The Old Testa- 
ment is very good in its way, but it certainly cannot 
be intended for all mankind ; since many parts can have 
no salutary influence whatever on the heart and life. 
It might be of some use to the Jews, but since we are 
so far beyond them it is quite out of place for us. 

Both Grotius and Wetstein had been the fore- 
runners of Ernesti in this method of interpretation. 
What he wrought against the New Testament had its 
counterpart in the mischief effected by John David 
Michaelis against the Old. This theologian was pro- 
foundly learned in the Oriental languages, but he was 
a reckless and irreverent critic. He made light of many 
of the occurrences of the Old Testament, and whenever 
the students applauded one of his obscene jokes, he was 
tickled into childishness. He made no claim to an 
experimental acquaintance with the operations of the 
Holy Spirit, and used his position as theological profes- 
sor and lecturer only as the stepping-stone to money 
and fame. He would make Moses a very good sort of 
statesman, but took care to cast censure upon him 
whenever the feeblest occasion was offered. Still he 
did not go so far as to cause great offense to his Jewish 
readers, who were very numerous at that time, for that 
would have endangered the pecuniary profits from his 
books. He lectured on every subject that came in his 
way, and discussed from his chair natural science, 
politics, agriculture, and horse-breeding, with as much 
respect and reverence as the song of Moses or the ut- 



128 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



terances of Isaiali. He carried Emesti's principles a 
step farther than that scholar had done. He held that 
it is necessary not only to understand the situation and 
circumstances of the writer and people at the time and 
place in which the books were written, and the language 
and history of the time, but all things connected with 
their moral and physical character. The critic must 
also be conversant with everything relating to those na- 
tions with whom the Jews associated, and know just 
how far the latter received their opinions and customs 
from abroad. 

There have been few men who have shown greater 
boldness in assaulting the Christian faith than Sem- 
ler, the father of the destructive school of Eationalism. 
Eeared in the lap of the sternest Pietism, he found 
himself a student at Halle pursuing his theological cur- 
riculum. He was one of the charmed disciples at 
Baumgarten's feet, but it was reserved for the pupil to 
accomplish far more than the master had ever antici- 
pated. Gradually the old faith claimed him only by a 
slight hold ; and when, while yet a student, he drew 
the subtle distinction between theology and religion, 
he, in that act, gave the parting hand to evangelical 
faith. Then step by step he descended, until he looked 
at the oracles of God with no more credence in their 
inspiration and divine claims than his master before 
him. In his turn he became professor ; and that was 
a dark day for Germany and Protestantism when he 
read his first lecture to his auditory. He studied the 
Scriptures while laboring under the conviction that 
people worship the Bible instead of the universal 
Father ; and he seemed to say within himself : " I will 
destroy this vain idolatry, if it take bread from my 
wife and children : if life be lost in the effort." So he 



semlek's destructtv'E :method. 



129 



set himself to work with a will. He was in a difficulty 
concernirig the want of understanding as to the number 
of sacred books. He consulted the Jews of Palestine, 
and they replied " twenty-four ; " he went to the Alex- 
andrians, and they answered " a greater number than 
that ; " and to the Samaritans, who stoutly held " that 
only the five books of Moses have a just claim to divine 
authority." With such difference of opinion among 
those who ought to know all about the Holy Scrip- 
tures, Semler, confounded and defiant, esteemed him- 
self a judge on his individual responsibility. He con- 
sequently began to examine the merits of each part. 
And first of all, he must determine what is the proof 
of the inspiration of a book. This he decided to be the 
inward conviction of our mind that what it conveys to 
us is truth. Certainly, reason cannot be sunk so low 
as to discard its functions of judgment. And did not 
Christ use his natural faculties ? Letting reason, there- 
fore, be umpire, he concluded that the books of Chron- 
icles, Kuth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and the Song of 
Solomon must be rejected ; that Joshua, Judges, the 
books of Samuel, Kings, and Daniel, are doubtful at 
best ; that the Proverbs of Solomon may be Ms or the 
joint production of a number of tolerably gifted men ; 
and that the Pentateuch, and especially Genesis, is a 
mere collection of legendary fragments. The New Tes- 
tament has some good qualities, which are wanting in 
the Old ; but there are parts of it positively injurious 
to the church. The Apocalypse of John, for example, 
can only be held by every calm critic as the work of a 
wild fanatic. As to the gospels, their authenticity and 
integrity are very doubtful, and that of John is the 
only one in any wise adapted to the present state of the 
world : since he alone is free from the Jewish spirit. 



130 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



The general epistles were written solely for the unifica- 
tion of the struggling parties into which the early 
church had unfortunately split. 

We now come to the famous Accommodation'Theory. 
Christ and his apostles taught doctrines of such nature 
and by such method as were compatible with the j^ecu- 
liarities of their condition. They adapted themselves 
to the barbarism and coexistent prejudices of the peo- 
ple ; and hence we can only reconcile much that they 
taught by their disposition to cater to the corrupt taste 
of their time. The Jews already possessed many no- 
tions which it would not be policy in Christ to annihi- 
late ; hence, said Semler, he reclothed them, and gave 
them a slight admixture of truth. Thus he reduced 
Christ's utterances concerning angels, the second coming 
of the Messiah, the last Judgment, demons, resurrection 
of the dead, and inspiration of the Scripture, to so 
many accommodations to prevailing errors. Semler had 
some indistinct faith in these revealed truths, but the 
stress which Christ laid upon them was, in his opinion, 
a mere stroke of policy. This theory he had been ma- 
turing for some time, and he first made it public in the 
preface to his Paraphrase of the Epistle to the Romojis. 

Another distinction which Semler drew in connec- 
tion with his new method of criticism, and somewhat 
allied to the details of his accommodation-theory, was 
between the local and temporary, the permanent and 
eternal, in the Scriptures. A large portion of the Bible, 
he held, is only ephemeral, and was never intended to 
be anything else. There was a local interest in the 
accounts of the writers ; but after the change of govern- 
ment, or the lapse of a generation or two, they had no 
ftuiher application to mankind. Nor do they now meet 
the wants of the world ; they are only the obsolete 



THE ACCOMMODATION THEORY. 



131 



macliinery of a superseded civilization. Semler bitterly 
complained of Ernesti by charging him with failing to 
fix the time and locality of the circumstances of the 
Scriptures. A few specimens will show how the latter 
strove to meet the great want. The coming of our Lord 
Jesus, 1 Cor. i. Y, is only the dawn of a temporal king- 
dom ; " Christ is a stumbling-block to the Jews," be- 
cause he would not throw off the Roman yoke as his 
countrymen had fondly hoped ; the Apostle's determi- 
nation " to know nothing but Jesus Christ crucified " 
meant that he knew nothing whatever of the second 
coming of Chiist ; " the Spirit searching the deep things 
of God " leads us to know that we can understand the 
dark things of the Prophets ; the creature which is 
made subject to vanity " is the Roman world still pur- 
suing its idolatry ; the demoniacs are mad men whom 
it was only necessary to bind in order to render per- 
fectly harmless. With such a system of interpretation 
as this, no one who adopted it could pretend to assign 
for himself a limit to his skepticism. Whatever defied 
the critic's acumen or the believer's spiritual grasp was 
unraveled on the principle that it was local and tem- 
porary. Surely Rationalism was making a bold stroke 
for supremacy, and it had the rare fortune of possessing 
a man of Semler's versatile taste and boldness of utter- 
ance. 

In one aspect he came into harmony with the Eng. 
lish Deists, though his praise of them was extremely 
moderate. He maintained that they had done more 
good than harm ; but it was only the best of them 
whom he really admired. He silently repudiated the 
volatile French school, the learned Bayle being the only 
one of the number whom he mentioned with any de- 
gree of satisfaction. The view by which he came into 



132 



HISTORY OF HATIONALISM. 



nearest relation to tlie free-thinkers of England wa8, 
that the Bible is but the republication of the religion 
of nature. He held that the world had been taught 
religion long before the Scriptures were written ; though 
he confessed that in them we find it more clearly state<] 
and more rigidly enjoined than anywhere else. Among 
the mass of natural teachings in the Bible we occasion- 
ally come across a modicum of eternal truth ; but the 
seeker is very seldom rewarded with a real gem of per- 
manent value. The Jews were grossly ignorant of 
all important spiritual light. Their chief idea of 
Jehovah was that he was their national God ; and their 
religion was purely one of circumstances and ceremonies. 
Moses had some idea of the soul's immortality, but his 
countrymen were not so highly favored as himself 
The Messiah of the Old Testament was a very vague 
personage ; and indistinct indeed must have been the 
Jewish idea of a coming Redeemer. 

But it was not here that Semler won his greatest 
victories. His chief triumph was against the history 
and doctrinal authority of the church. His mind had 
been thoroughly imbued with a disgust at what was 
ancient and revered. He appeared to despise the antiqui 
ties of the church simply because they were antiquities.' 
What was new and fresh, was, with him, worthy of 
unbounded admiration and speedy adoption. His 
prejudice against the Fathers may have been imbibed 
in part from the Reformers ; but, however derived, his 
distaste and censure knew no bounds. All the earlj 
Christian writers, he believed, were brimful of imper 
fections. Tertullian was fanciful, and Augustine cap. 
tious. So persistent were his efforts against the tradi- 
tional authority of the church that they endangered the 
very foundations of German Protestantism. One would 



semler's private life. 



133 



hav^e thouglit him at times exhausted of strength ; but 
no sooner did the thinking public recover from one 
surprise than it was startled by another attack. The 
church reeled beneath his invasion of her doctrinal and 
historical authority. But there was a limit to her par 
tience. To call those heroic standard-bearers of her 
early faith fanatics and visionaries was quite too much 
for her to endure. 

It now remained to be seen whether Semler's bold- 
ness would overleap itself, or prove the ruin of the re- 
ligious spirit of the Continent for generations. The 
result, whatever it might be, was soon to be decided. 
For such views as he was propagating throughout the 
Protestant church of Germany could not fail to determine 
speedily the drift of the public sentiment of his day. 

His work, though destructive, was in conflict with 
the pui'e beauty of his private life. And here we look 
at him as one of the enigmas of human biography. 
True to his tenet that a man's public teachings need not 
influence his personal living, he was at once a teacher 
of skepticism and an example of piety. His Mo- 
ravian origin and Pietistic training he could never for- 
get ; nor do we believe he attempted it. No doubt the 
asperity that he witnessed at Halle did much to repel 
him from the harsher side of Pietism. When he heard 
his room-mate praying aloud three hours a day upon 
his knees ; and when he was advised to lay aside 
all extensive studies, because he would never be con- 
verted while pursuing them, he began to question 
whether intellectual progress were compatible with deep 
piety. The conclusion at which he arrived was against 
the intellectuality of the creed of Spener, but in favor 
of the spiritual purity of the life of his disciples. 
Through Semler's entire career we can find traces of 



134 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



that devoted spirit which had shined so brightly in his 
early youth, and which, in late life, he was not ashamed 
to confess. " There was no corner in the whole house," 
said he, " where I did not kneel, and pray, and weep 
alone that God might, out of his infinite mercy, pardon 
my sins. I felt that I was under the bondage of the 
law. Moravian songs seemed to be of very little help 
to me. I examined myself carefully to see whether or 
not I clung to any sin either consciously or ignorantly. 
I reproached myself several times for only giving one 
penny to the poor-collection when I had several pence 
in my pocket. My father would give me more the next 
time to make up my deficiency, and this was a great 
delight to me. It is now one of the pleasantest mem- 
ories of my university-life that I used to give pieces of 
money to the poor." 

His domestic life was very beautiful. He did not 
remain alone in his study, where most literary men love 
to be. But wherever his children were playing, or his 
wife knitting or spinning, he was most happy to pursue 
his studies and write his books. He gives the follow- 
ing picture : " We had the children continually about 
us, when they were not under the care of their teachers. 
Then we would have them read, or in turn sing a 
Psalm or a hymn, or learn some passage from a good 
book. We sang with them, and asked them questions 
in what they had been studying. They knew Gellert's 
songs by rote. There was nothing but peace and con- 
tentment in our circle. The servants never saw oi 
heard anything unpleasant. Every little disturbance 
was hushed at once ; and all the family felt the power 
of my wife in our household arrangements; and our 
reciprocal love was apparent to every one. I put all the 
money matters into her hands; she paid the debts and 



semler's private life. 



135 



received the revenue. Thus passed on twenty years of 
beautiful uniformity , and parents and children felt that 
we were dearer to eacli other than was all the world 
besides. We all met faithfully our duties to each other. 
But little had then been Avritten on domestic training, 
yet w^e created our ideas from the pure fountain of re- 
ligion ; and though we were deprived of mucb of tlie 
glitter of human life, we enjoyed its necessities and its 
beauty." 

When such ties unite a family we are not sui3)rised 
at the spirit with which death is met by a carefully 
nurtured child. The account is from Semler s own pen. 
His daughter, then twenty-one years of age, was on her 
death-bed, hastening to join her mother, who but 
shortly before had been borne from the tlireshold. 

About nine o'clock," wrote the bereaved father, " I 
again pronounced the benediction upon her. With a 
breaking heart I lay down to sleep a little. She sent 
for me, and addressed me thus : ^ Pardon me, my dear 
father, I am so needy ; and do help me to die with that 
faith and determination which your Christian daughter 
should possess.' My heart took courage, and I spoke 
to her of the glories of the heavenly world which would 
soon break upon her. She sang snatches of sweet songs, 
following whick I said but little. When I addressed 
her, ' My dear daughter, you will soon rejoin your noble 
mother,' she answered, ^ Oh, yes, and what rapture will 
I enjoy 1 ' I fell down at her bedside, and again com- 
mitted her soul to the almighty and enduiing care of 
God. Then just before I went to my lecture I went to 
see her again : I asked her if she still remembered the 
hymn, ' Thou art mine, because I hold thee ; ' when she 
said, * Oh, yes,' and repeated the verse, ^ O Lord my 
refage, Fountain of my Joys.' ' Yes, eternal,' I added. 



13(1 



HISTORY OF PvATIONALIS^r. 



I left her, thinking that she might hxst considerably 
longer. But I was suddenly called from my lecture, 
when I again committed her grand spirit to God who 
gave it, and closed her eyes myself. My bitter grief 
now subsided into calm meditation, and a sweet ac(|uies- 
cence with the wise will of God. Now I know^ what 
the real joy is of having seen a child die so calmly, and 
of feeling that I had some share in the training that 
conld end so triumphantly. And I still publicly thank 
those of her teachers who have contiibuted to the form- 
ation of her character. Therefore, when some w^ould 
in our days advocate an unchristian education, I can 
speak with the light of experience, when I earnestly 
recommend to all pious and provident parents to give 
their children a good Chi-istian training. Thus Chris- 
tian-like and beautifully have Christian-trained people 
been dying these many centuries." 

It is astonishing that a man could live as purely 
and devotedly as Semler, and yet make the gulf 
so wide between private faith and public instruc- 
tion. We attribute no evil intention to him in his 
theological labors; these were the result of his own 
mental defects. He was a careless Avriter, and not a 
close thinker. He read history loosely, and the philos- 
ophy of the Christian system was unperceived and un- 
appreciated by him. He looked at single defects, and 
magnified them to such an extent that they obscured 
whole mines of truth and virtue. Having conceived a 
vague idea of his theme, he wrote hurriedly upon it 
He was impelled by his previous notions and the ex- 
citement of the hour. He had a very retentive memory, 
but it was no aid to correct reasoning. When he saw 
one evil of the Fathers, a mistake of the church, or a 
defect in her doctrine, he generalized it until he believed 



ADHERENTS TO SEMLER's OPINIONS. 



137 



error to be tlie rule instead of tlie exception. It has 
been said that, toward the close of his life, he regretted 
his theological instructions ; but in a conversation two 
days before his death he betrayed the same skeptical 
views that had distinguished his life. His method of 
skeptical -historical criticism was the poison which, hav- 
ing been once introduced into the literature and pulpits 
of the church, produced wide-spread and long-seated 
disease. 

Semler was not the founder of a school, for he ad- 
vanced no elaborate system and possessed no organizing 
power. Great as were the results of his labors, no one 
was more surprised at them than himself. Two or 
three immediate disciples, who had heard him lecture, 
were enamored of his theories, but as they were men 
of moderate capacity their activity produced no perma- 
nent effect upon the public mind. It was in another 
respect that he was mighty. Some of his contem- 
poraries who taught in other universities seized upon 
his tenets and began to propagate them vigorously. 
They made great capital out of them for themselves. 
Semler invaded and overthi^ew what was left of the 
popular faith in inspiration after the labors of Wolff, 
but here he stopped. His adherents and imitators com- 
menced with his abnegation of inspiration, and made it 
the preparatory step for their attempted annihilation 
of revelation itself. Soon the theological press teemed 
with blasphemous publications against the Scriptures ; 
and men of all the schools of learning gave themselves 
to the work of instruction. Gottingen, Jena, Helm- 
stedt, and Frankfort-on-the-Oder were no longer schools 
of prophets, but of Rationalists and Illuminists. 

Griesbach pursued his skeptical investigations for 
the establishment of natural religion and others aided 



138 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALLSM. 



him in his undertaking. But the men of this class 
were not the principal agents of the complete ruin 
of the religious vitality of the people. We turn to 
Edelmann and Bahrdt, two of the most decided ene- 
mies of Christianity who have appeared in these later 
centuries. 

The former was the better man, but his career 
brought discredit on private virtue and public morality. 
In the early part of his life he was blameless, but he 
subsequently betrayed all the personal weakness which 
his skepticism tended to engender. We get a fair por- 
trait of him from the pen of one of his countrymen, 
Kahnis : " What Edelmann wished was nothing new," 
writes this author ; " after the manner of all adherents 
of Illuminism, he wished to reduce all positive religions 
to natural religion. The positive heathenish religions 
stand, to him, on a level with Judaism and Christianity. 
He is more just toward heathenism than toward Juda- 
ism, and more just toward Judaism than toward Chris- 
tianity. Everything positive in religion is, as such, 
superstition. Christ was a mere man, whose chief merit 
consists in the struggle against superstition. What he 
taught, and what he was anxious for, no one, however, 
may attempt to learn from the New Testament writings, 
inasmuch as these were forged as late as the time of 
Constantine. All which the church teaches of his 
divinity, of his merits, of the gracious influence of the 
Holy Spirit, is absurd. There is no rule of truth but 
reason, and it manifests its truths directly by a peculiar 
sense. Whatever this sense says is true. It is this 
sense which perceives the world. The reality of every- 
thing which exists is God. In the proper sense there 
can, therefore, not exist any atheist, because every one 
who admits the reality of the world admits also the 



BAHRDT. 



139 



reality of God. God is not a person— least of all are 
there three persons in God. If God be the substance 
in all the phenomena, then it follows of itself that God 
cannot be thought of without the world, and hence that 
the world has no more had an origin than it will have 
an end. One may call the world the body of God, the 
shadow of God, the son of God. The spirit of God is 
in all that exists. It is ridiculous to ascribe inspiration 
to special persons only ; every one ought to be a Christ, 
a prophet, an inspired man. The human spirit, being 
a breath of God, does not perish ; our spirit, separated 
from its body by death, enters into a connection with 
some other body. Thus Edelmann taught a kind of 
metempsychosis. What he taught had been thoroughly 
and ingeniously said in France and England ; but from 
a German theologian, and that with such eloquent 
coarseness, with such a mastery in expatiating in blas- 
phemy, such things were unheard of. But as yet the 
faith of the church was a power in Germany ! " 

From Edelmann the transition is easy to the reckless 
and vicious Bahi'dt. This man stands among the first of 
those who have brought dishonor upon the sacred vocar 
tion. What Jeffreys is to the judicial history of England, 
Bahrdt is to the religious history of German Protestant- 
ism. Whatever he touched was disgraced by the vile- 
ness of his heart and the satanic daring of his mind. 
He heard theological lectures. Thinking that in this field 
he could infuse most venom and reap a greater harvest 
of gold than in any other, he stripped for the under- 
taking. While a mere youth he gained, by his tricky 
management, a professor's chair. He blasphemed to his 
auditors by day, while at night he surrendered himself 
to the corruptions of the gambling-room, the beer-cellar 
and the house of prostitution. The slave of passion and 



140 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



of doubt, he was, of all his contemporaries, the most loud- 
spoken against the claims of God's truth, and adherence 
to the canons of the church. His mind was quick, ac- 
tive, and penetrating. Seizing the pen, he invaded the 
sanctity of every doctrine that stood in the way of his 
corrupt theories. He took up the Bible with sacrile- 
gious purpose, and made it the plaything of his vicious 
heart. He sneered at what was revered by the church 
and the good men of past ages, with the kind of levity 
that should greet the recital of the stories of Sinhad 
the Sailor and the Wonderful Lamp, 

He published many works, the aim of all being to 
infuse into the masses a contempt of the received Scrip- 
tures. He issued a travesty of the New Testament un- 
der the title of The New Testament^ or The Newest In- 
structions from God through Jesus and his Apostles. 
He did just what he pleased with the miracles and words 
of Christ. He would convert dialogue into parable, 
and make any passage, however grave in import, min- 
ister to his unsanctified purpose. He banished such ex- 
pressions as 'kingdom of God,' ' holiness,' 'sanctification,' 
' Saviour,' ' Redeemer,' ' way of salvation,' ' Holy Ghost,' 
* name of Jesus,' and all other terms that could leave 
the impression of inspiration and divine presence. 

But corrupt as the church was, it was not ready for 
this fearful leap ; therefore Bahrdt received a toirent of 
abuse. Banished and hunted by opposition, he gained 
many adherents from the force of the very arrows dis- 
charged against him. He had fallen from the height of 
faith which he occupied when he went to Giessen, a fact 
which he refers to in his autobiography : I came to 
Giessen," says he, " as yet very orthodox. My belief in 
the divinity of the Scriptures, in the direct mission of 
Jesus, in his miraculous history, in the Trinity, in the 



BAHRDT. 



141 



gifts of grace, in natural corruption, in justification of 
the sinner by laying hold of the merits of Christ, and 
especially in the whole theory of satisfaction, seemed 
to be immovable. It was only the manner in which 
three persons were to be in one God, which had engaged 
my reason. I had only explained to myself a little bet- 
ter the work of the Holy Spirit, so as not to exclude 
man's activity. I had limited a little the idea of origi- 
nal sin ; and in the doctrine of the atonement and justi- 
fication I had endeavored to uphold the value of vir- 
tue, and had cleared myself from the error that God, in 
his grace, should not pay any regard at all to human 
virtuous zeal. That in the doctrine of the Lord's Sup- 
per I was more Reformed than Lutheran, will be sup- 
posed as a matter of course." 

But in due time he dropped these points of belief, 
one by one, until he indulged in all the illicit extrava- 
gances of the radical skeptics of France. The opposi- 
tion he met with was a sore rebuke, but it failed to cure 
him. He set out for a journey to England and Holland 
with but three florins in his purse, and he suffered much 
by the way. He came home again only to find new 
edicts against him. On arriving at Halle, where he had 
once been honored, he was met with the following re- 
pulse from the faculty, at whose head stood Semler, the 
father of his doubt : " Our vocation demands not only 
that we should prevent the dissemination of directly ir- 
religious opinions, but also that we should watch over 
the doctrines which are contained in Holy Scripture, 
and, in conformity with it, in the Augsburg Confession 
of FaithP 

He labored as an educator, preacher, professor, and 

author. He made all his enterprises subservient to the 

dearest object of his life, — money. He wrote plain 
11 



142 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



books for the masses, and his writings were perused alike 
in palace and cottage. While a resident in Halle he 
established an inn in the suburbs of the city where his 
depraved nature was permitted to indulge in those 
nameless liberties unbecoming, not only the theologian, 
but the rational man. His liaison, with the servant-girl 
in his employ made his wife an object of public pity ; 
and we can easily understand his injustice to the latter 
when he tells us himself that he had never loved with 
passion. His death was of a piece with his life. Hav- 
ing been a public frequenter of brothels and the asso- 
ciate of the loosest company, he died like the libertine. 
He was taken off by syphilis. 

It is not necessary to enlarge upon the lesson of 
Bahrdt's life. He was the German crystallization of 
all the worst elements of French skepticism. He be- 
gan his work with an evil purpose, and never sought the 
wisdom of God who promises to give liberally to all 
who ask him. The infamy of his life was soon for- 
gotten, and only his teachings remained to corrupt the 
young and injure the mature of the land. While his 
love of money controlled his matrimonial alliances and 
literary labors, his hatred of revealed religion dis- 
torted his whole moral and intellectual nature. He is 
illustrative of the certain doom w^hich awaits the man 
who commits himself to the sole guidance of his doubts, 
Semler's moral life was in spite of erroneous opinions ; 
Bahrdt's was in conformity with them. And what the 
latter was in his career and death is the best comment 
that can be written on the natural effect of Rationalism. 
Would that he had been the only warning ; but he had 
his followers when his creed became the fashion of the 
German church. The depth of his infamy is only ag- 
gravated by the holy sphere in which he wrought fear- 



BAHEDT. 



fol havoc upon the succeeding generation. The Old 
Play says truly : 

" That sin does ten times aggravate itael^ 

That is committed in an holy place ; 

An evil deed done by authority 

Is sin and subornation ; deck an ape 

In tissue, and the beauty of the robe 

Adds but the greater scorn unto the beast; 

The poison shows worst in a golden cup ; 

Dark night seems darker by the lightning's flash; 

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds; 

And every glory that inclines to sin, 

The shame is trebled by the opposite." 



CHAPTER VI. 



CONTRIBUTIONS OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 



The views of Semier, possessing great power of 
fascination, soon gained popular strength. As a result, 
the strictly literary tastes of the people took a theo- 
logical turn and the Bible became the theme of every 
aspirant to authorship. As no system had yet been ad* 
vanced by the Rationalists, there was wide range for 
doctrinal and exegetical discussion. The devoted Pie- 
tists, who were now in the background, looked on in 
amazement as they trembled for the pillars of faith. 
They knew not what to do. Many of their number 
had proved themselves fanatics and brought odium 
upon the revered names of Spener and Francke. Their 
enemies were traveling in foreign lands, ransacking the 
libraries of other tongues to bring home the poisonous 
seeds of doubt. At home, the University was the 
training school of ungoverned criticism. History, 
science, literature, and philology were only prized ac- 
cording to the measure of strength they possessed to 
combat the great claims of the orthodox church. Be- 
sides, the Rationalists seemed to be impartial inquirers. 
They set themselves to understand the scriptural 
lands and languages, while their progress in recent 
biblical literature gained for them the respect of many 



MENTAL ACTIVITY. 



145 



who, though less learned, were more evangelical. The 
masses have always paid homage to learning, and in 
this case it was the attainments of the Illuminists which 
gave them a standing denied to the friends of the Bible, 
The times were all astir with the evidences of mental 
progression. There was now a resurrection of Eu- 
ropean activity. Look whither you will, there was no- 
where either the spirit of sleep or of sloth. The 
science of government, the beauties of aesthetic cul- 
ture, the discoveries of the material world, and the 
long-sealed mysteries of philology, were each the centre 
of a host of admirers and votaries. As in the four- 
teenth and fifteenth centuries Europe arose from the 
torpidity of the Middle Ages, so did the eighteenth 
century witness a new revival from the darkness and 
sluggishness of Continental Protestantism. There ap- 
peared to be a universal repudiation of old methods, 
and a new civilization was now the aim of every class of 
Uterary adventurers. Semler had struck the key-note of 
human pride. He had so flattered his race by saying 
that the Bible was not so sacred as to be exempt from 
criticism, that his contemporaries would not willingly 
let his words fall to the ground. The temptation was 
too strong to be resisted, and soon the Scriptures became 
a carcass around which the vultures of Germany gather- 
ed to satisfy the cravings of their wanton hunger. We 
do not say that the destruction ists desired, to injure the 
faith of the people, or to cast odium upon the pages 
that Luther and Melanchthon had unfolded to the Ger- 
man heart. - But believing as they did that the popular 
respect for the Bible was sheer bibliolatry, and that 
therefore the dignity of reason was compromised, they 
bestirred themselves to show every weak point in the 
faith of the church. They hastened to expose the de- 



146 



HISTOEY OF KATIONALISM. 



fects of the Scriptures with as much frankness as they 
would brand a sentence in Cicero or Seneca to be the 
interpolation of an impostor. 

In no nation has theology, as a science, absorbed 
more literary talent and labor than in Germany. In 
America and Great Britain the theologian is the 
patron of his own department of thought. But in 
Germany, poets, romancists, and scientific men write 
almost as many works connected with religious ques- 
tions as on topics within their own chosen vocation. 
The Teuton considers himself a born theologian. So 
it was after the announcement of the destructive theo- 
ries of Semler. All classes of thinkers invited them- 
selves to discuss the Scriptures and their claims with as 
much freedom as if God had told them it was the true 
aim of their life. 

What was the consequence ? Semler, having left so 
much room for doubt, and having rather indicated a di- 
rection than supplied a plan, a great number of men 
adopted the accommodation-theory and each one built 
his own edifice upon it. But the conclusions arrived at 
by them were very unlike, and generally incongru- 
ous. And such a result was very natural ; for, all 
claiming the unrestricted use of reason, the issue of 
their thinking was the work of the individual mind. 
No two intellects are perfectly similar. Set a number 
of men to write upon a given subject and they will em- 
ploy a different style, give expression to diverse 
thoughts, and perhaps reach antipodal conclusions. So 
when these writers against inspiration plied the pen, 
and burdened the press with their prolix effusions, there 
was no harmony in their thoughts. In one opinion they 
were firmly united, that the Bible is a human book. 
Bat how much of it was authentic? what was history 



UNIVERSAL GERMAN LIBRARY. 



147 



and what myth ? what poetry and what incident ? These 
and a thousand kindred points divided the Rationalists 
into almost as many classes as there were individuals. 

There were two principal tendencies which gave 
a permanence and efficiency to Rationalism quite be- 
yond the expectation of its most sanguine friends and 
admirers. One was literary^ and inaugurated by Less- 
ing ; the other purely philosophical, and conducted by 
Kant. 

The literary despotism at Berlin was one of the 
most remarkable in the annals of periodical literature. 
We refer to the Universal German Library, under the 
control of Nicolai. Its avowed aim was to laud every 
Rationalistic book to the skies, but to reproach every 
evangelical publication as unworthy the support, or 
even the notice, of rational beings. Its appliances for 
gaining knowledge were extensive, and it commanded a 
survey of the literature of England, Holland, France, 
and Italy. Whatever appeared in these lands received 
its immediate attention, and was reproached or magni- 
fied according to its relations to the skeptical creed of 
Nicolai and his co-laborers. Commencing in 1765, it ran 
a career of power and prosperity such as but few serials 
have ever enjoyed. It terminated its existence in 1792, 
having inflicted incalculable evil upon the popular esti- 
mate of the vital doctrines of Christianity. Being the 
great organ of the Rationalists, it sat in judgment upon 
the sublime truths of our holy faith. With all the 
rage of an infuriated lion it pounced upon every literary 
production or practical movement that had a tendency 
to restore the old landmarks. Its influence was felt 
throughout Germany and the Continent. Every uni- 
versity and gymnasium listened to it as an oracle, while 
its power was felt even in the pot-houses and humblest 



148 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



cottages. Berlin was completely under its sway, and 
Berliner was a synonym of nationalist Oetinger 
wrote a curious passage in a volume of sermons, pub- 
lished in 1Y77, in which he descants On those things of 
which the people of Berlin 'know nothing-, "They know 
nothing of the Lord of glory ; they are sick of these 
shallow-pated Leibnitzians ; they wish to know nothing 
of the promises of God ; they have nothing to do with 
the salutations of the seven spirits ; they form a mo- 
chanical divinity after their own notion. The Berliners 
know nothing of man so far as he is a subject of divine 
grace ; nothing of angels or devils, nothing of what sin 
is, nothing of eating and drinking the flesh and blood 
of Christ, and still less of the communion of saints, and 
that the spirit can be communicated by the laying on 
of hands. They know nothing of the truth that bap- 
tism and the Lord's Supper are agents for a spiritual 
union with Christ ; they know nothing of heaven and 
hell; nothing of the interval before the resurrection. 
Neither do they wish to know anything save what may 
harmonize with their own depraved views. But the 
time will come when Jesus will show them how they 
should have confessed him before the world." This 
was Berlin, and Berlin was Germany. 

The position of Rationalism during the last quarter 
of the eighteenth century was surrounded with circum- 
stances of the most conflicting nature. Had it been ad- 
vocated by a few more such ribald characters as Bahrdt 
its career would soon have been terminated from 
the mere want of respectability. But had it assumed a 
more serious phase and become the protege of such 
pious men as Semler was at heart, there would have 
been no limit to the damage it might have done to the 
cause of Protestantism. And there were indications 



THE WOLFENBUTTEL FRAGMENTS. 149 

favorable to either result. However, by some plan of 
fiendish malice, skepticism received all the support it 
could ask from the learned, the powerful, and the am- 
bitious. Here and there around the horizon could be 
seen some rising literary star that, for the hour, excited 
universal attention. His labor was to impugn the con- 
tents of the Scriptures and insinuate against the moral 
purity of the writers themselves. Another candidate 
for theological glory appeared and reproached the style 
of the inspired record. A third came vauntingly for- 
ward with his geographical discoveries and scientific 
data, and reared the accommodation-theory so many 
stories higher than Sender had left it that it almost 
threatened to fall of its own weight. Strange that 
the poetic Muse should lend her inspiration to such 
unholy purposes ; but in the poetry of that day there 
was but little of the Christian element, and he need not 
be greatly skilled in classic verse who concludes that 
the loftiest poetry of Rationalism was as thoroughly 
heathen as the dramas of Euripides or Plautus. 

Immediately before the appearance of the Wolf en- 
hiittel Fragments by Lessing, there was the significant 
lull before the storm. A single editorial in some re- 
ligious periodical might decide the fate of Rationalism. 
In a few years more it might lie outside the lecture-halls 
and renowned churches as thoroughly discarded as a 
cast-off garment. Or it might rise to new power and 
bend all opposition before it. Every one seemed to be 
waiting to see what would come next. Would it be th© 
hoarse thunder and the glare of lightning ; or would 
the clouds be rent and the clear sky be seen through 
the widening rifts ? 

Lessing touched a chord which vibrated throughout 
the land. While in charge of the celebrated Library at 



150 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



Wolfenbiittel lie met with a manuscript production of 
Reimarus, bearing the title of Vindication of tlhe Ror 
tional Worshipers of God. It can still be found in 
the Town Library of Hamburg. Between 1Y74 and 
1778, Lessing issued seven Fragments from this work ; 
and the result was, that Germany was electrified by the 
boldness and importance of the views there advanced. 
They cannot be considered the private opinions of Less- 
ing, for in many places he appends notes stating his 
opposition to them. But he heartily approved the sub- 
stance of the work, though his object in the publication 
of the Fragments was more to feel the public pulse 
than to instill theoloi^ical doctrines into the minds of the 
people. Reimarus had been a doubter like many others 
of his countrymen. He committed his mental phases to 
paper, though he thought that it was not yet time to 
issue them for public notice. The Fragments pub- 
lished by Lessing contain the gist of his entire work, 
and contributed far more to the growth of skepticism 
than a larger production would probably have done. 
The historical evidences of Christianity and of the doc- 
trine of inspiration, according to the Fragments^ are clad 
in such a garb of superstition that they do not merit 
the credence of sensible men. The confessions framed 
at different periods of the history of the church have 
savored far more of human weakness than of divine 
knowledge. They bear but slight traces of biblical 
truth. The Trinity is incomprehensible, and the heart 
should not feel bound to lean upon what Reason can^ 
not fathom. Nearly all the Old Testament history is 
a string of legends and myths which an advanced age 
should indignantly reject. Christ never really intended 
to establish a permanent religion; the work of his 
apostles was something unanticipated by himself His 



THE WOLFENBUTTEL FKAGMENTS. 



151 



design was to restore Judaism to its former state, 
throw off the Koman yoke, and declare himself king. 
His public entry into Jerusalem was designed to be 
his installation as a temporal king ; but he failed in his 
dependence upon popular support, and, instead of at- 
taining a throne, he died on the cross. Belief in scrip- 
tui^al records is perfectly natural to the Christian, for he 
has imbibed it from education and training. Reason is 
forestalled in the ordinary education of children ; they 
are baptized before they are old enough to exercise 
their own reasoning faculties. Faith in Scripture testi- 
mony is really of no greater value than the belief of the 
Mohammedan or Jew in their oracles, unless Reason be 
permitted to occupy the seat of judgment. 

We have said that the excitement raised by the 
publication of the Fragments was intense. There was 
in them more calmness of expression, and more apparent 
effort for truthful conclusions than many of the pre- 
viously published works of the Rationalists had indi- 
cated. By and by, there sprang up a decided opposi- 
tion to the work of Lessing ; and from all quarters of 
the German church there came earnest and vigorous 
replies. It was surprising that there remained so much 
tenacity for the old faith. Lessing received the censure 
of many of the best and wisest men of his time ; his 
publication of the Fragments was claimed to be a curse 
to the cause of truth. But he had accomplished what 
he wished, while his success was far beyond his expec- 
tation. He found that a large portion of his country- 
men were not willing to cast loose from the old moor- 
ings of the Protestant teachings, and that, whatever 
the previous indications were, there was yet a deep 
undercurrent of attachment to the time-honored confes- 
sions of the church. 



152 



mSTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



Tlie movement employed by Lessing to find out 
what the people really believed is one of the shrewdest 
literary tricks on record. Without committing himself 
to what he issued, and watching carefully the effect of 
the Fragments^ he began to publish his own views with 
no little assurance that he would prove successful. He 
learned that the Wolffian philosophy was becoming 
effete, and so he raised the cry, loud and clear, against 
its longer existence. He violently opposed the obliter- 
ation of all dependence upon the historical proofs of 
Christianity, and claimed that, in the matter of religion, 
the heart has a work not less than the reason. His 
principle was: overthrow this historical basis, and you 
endanger the whole edifice. He inflicted great injury 
upon the inflated, pompous Popular Philosophy, for he 
exposed its emptiness as but few were able to do. He 
opposed, with all the force of his rare satirical and logi- 
cal power, the attempt of the Rationalists to substitute 
the intuitions of Reason for the dictates of the heart 
and for the promptings of faith. " What else," he asks, 
" is this modern theology when compared with ortho- 
doxy, than filthy water with clear water ? With 
orthodoxy we had, thanks to God, pretty much settled ; 
between it and philosophy a barrier had been erected, 
behind which each of these could walk in its own way 
without molesting the other. But what is it that they 
are now doing? They pull down this barrier, and, 
under the pretext of making us rational OhristianSy 
they make us most irrational philosophers. In this we 
agree that our old religious system is false, but I should 
not like to say with you [he is writing to his brother] 
that it is a patch- work, got up by jugglers and semi- 
philosophers. I do not know of anything in the world 
in which human ingenuity had more shown and exer- 



lessing's opinions. 



153 



cised itself than in it. A patcli-work by jugglers and 
semi-pliilosopliers is tliat religious system wMch they 
would put in the place of the old one, and, in doing so, 
would pretend to more rational philosophy than the old 
one claims." 

It was difficult to tell what Lessing believed. His 
publication of the views of a doubter was of itself a 
proof that he agreed, to some extent at least, with them. 
This we must grant as a concession to his honesty and 
common sense. And when assailed by Gotze and others 
for thus attacking the faith of the church, he repli-ed 
that, even if the Fragmentists were right, Christianity 
was not thereby endangered.^ He rejected the letter, 
but reserved the spirit of the Scriptures. With him, 
the letter is not the spirit and the Bible is not religion. 
Consequently, objections against the letter, as well as 
against the Bible, are not precisely objections against 
the spirit and religion. For the Bible evidently con- 
tains more than belongs to religion, and it is a mere 
supposition, that, in this additional matter which it 
€ontains, it must be equally infallible. Moreover, reli- 
gion existed before there was a Bible. Christianity 
existed before evangelists and apostles had written. 
However much, therefore, may depend upon those 
Scriptures, it is not possible that the whole truth of the 
Christian religion should depend upon them. Since 
there existed a period in which it was so far spread, 
in which it had already taken hold of so many souls, 
and in which, nevertheless, not one letter was written 
of that which has come down to us, it must be possible 
also that everything which evangelists and prophets 
have written might be lost again, and yet the religion 
taught by them stand. The Christian religion is not 

* Kahnis: History of German Protestantism^ pp. 145-165. 



154 



HISTOEY OF RATIOi^ALISM. 



true because Evangelists and apostles taught it ; but 
they taught it because it wa^ true. It is from their in- 
ternal truth that all written documents must be ex- 
plained, and all these written documents cannot give 
it internal truth when it has none. The Christian 
religion is distinguished from the religion of Clirist; 
the latter, being a life immediately implanted and main- 
tained in our heart., manifests itself in love, and can 
neither stand nor fall with the Gospel. The truths of 
religion have nothing to do with the facts of history. 

With such opinions as these, expressed in great 
clearness and conciseness, who can fail to perceive that 
their tendency was to overthrow the traditional faith 
of the church in large portions of the Bible ? Who is 
to be the judge of what is to be retained and what 
rejected ? Indeed, if Lessing be right, the entire Scrip- 
ture record might be abolished without doing vio- 
lence to religion. The effect of his writings was de- 
cidedly skeptical. His view of Christianity was merely 
sesthetical, and only so far as the Bible was an agent 
of popular elevation did he seem to consider it valuable. 
He did not dispute the facts of Scripture history be- 
cause of the various accounts given of them by the in- 
spired writers. Variety of testimony was no ground 
for the total overthrow of the thing testified. He re- 
tained the history of the resurrection in spite of the 
different versions of it. " Who," he asks, " has ever 
ventured to draw the same inference in profane history ? 
If Livy, Polybius, Dionysius, and Tacitus relate the 
very same event, it may be the very same battle, the 
very same siege, each one differing so much in the de- 
tails that those of the one completely give the lie to 
those of the other, has any one, for that reason, ever 
denied the event itself in which they agree ? " 



lesslng's opinions. 



155 



We may examine tlie entire circle of Lessing's 
literar}' productions, and we shall see, scattered here 
and there through them, sentiments which, taken singly, 
would have a very beneficial effect upon the popular 
faitli in inspiration and the historical testimony of the 
Scriptures. But, unhappily, these were overshadowed 
by others of a conflicting nature, and though he did not 
array himself as a champion of Kationalism, he proved 
himself one of the strongest promoters of its reign. He 
considered his age torpid and sluggish. It was his de- 
sire to awaken it. And he did succeed in giving to the 
chaotic times in which he lived that literary direction 
which we now look back upon as the starting-point of 
recent German literature. The chief evil that he in- 
flicted was due to the position in which he placed him- 
self as the combatant of the avowed friends of inspira- 
tion. He was honest in his love of truth, but he loved 
the search for it more than the attainment. The key 
to his whole life may be found in his own words : " If 
God should hold in his right hand all truth, and in his 
left the ever-active impulse and love of search after 
truth, although accompanied with the condition that 
I should ever err, and should say, ^ Choose ! ' I would 
choose the left with humility, and say, ^ Give, Father ! 
Pure truth belongs to thee alone ! ' " 

The revolution which Lessing wrought in literature 
was only equaled by that achieved by Kant in the 
domain of philosophy. 

It has been one of the historical features of German 
theology that it has ever affiliated with philosophy. 
The mathematical method of Wolff has been a severe 
blow to orthodoxy, and it was but partially counter- 
acted by the work of Pietism. But the influence of 
that copyist of Leibnitz is only of a piece with the im- 



156 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



press ion made upon theology and faith by every respect* 
able innovation in pliilosophy. But Kant threw all 
others in the shade. He was the agent of a change in 
philosophical thinking, which was destined not only to 
reform the old systems of Germany, but to wield a 
universal power over modern thought. He had looked 
to England for his masters, and succeeded in gaining a 
thorough acquaintance with the grave skepticism of 
Hume and kindred minds. He shut himself up in his 
native Konigsberg, and, in all his life, never traveled 
more than thirty miles therefrom. He had the memory 
of a pious Christian mother ever present to him, and no 
one can conjecture the probable influence that her ex- 
ample exerted upon his mental processes. The astute 
philosopher wrote of her with the deepest feeling of his 
natui'e when he said, " My mother was an amiable, 
sensitive, pious, and devoted woman, who taught her 
children the fear of God by her godly teachings and 
spotless life. She often led me outside the city, and 
showed me the works of God ; she pointed me with 
devout feelings to the omnipotence, wisdom, and good- 
ness of God ; and inspired my heai*t with a deep rever- 
ence for the Creator of all things. I shall never forget 
my mother, for it was she who planted and strength- 
ened my first germ of goodness ; she opened my heart 
to the impressions of nature ; she awakened and ad- 
vanced my conceptions ; and it has been her instruc- 
tions that have exerted a permanent and wholesome 
influence upon my life." ' 

First an undergraduate and afterward a professor in 
the University of Konigsberg, Kant quietly matured 
his principles, and was in no haste to communicate them 
to the world. He delivered his philosophy to his 
students in the form of lectures, and was extremely 



KAl^T's CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. 



157 



careful not to publish it until he was sure that his mind 
had arrived at its final conclusions. A student named 
Hippel, who had enjoyed his intimacy, was the first to 
give publicity to his opinions. He employed the 
medium of a novel. He forestalled their real author, 
and Kant was compelled to explain the matter openly 
as a breach of faith. Gradually the lecture-hall at 
Konigsberg became full of hearers, who, in a little 
time, could gain admittance only with difiiculty. The 
professor of philosophy was a magnet that drew to that 
bleak northern city students from all parts of the Con- 
tinent. Finally the opportune moment arrived. Hav- 
ing written, rewritten, altered, and abridged until he 
looked upon his work as beyond his power of improve- 
ment, he now deemed his convictions permanently 
formed. So the Critique of Pure Reason entered upon 
its career of victory. The literary and thinking world 
had learned but a little of it in Hippel's book ; and 
now there seemed to be no inclination to probe the con- 
cise language of the master's work, for the task ap- 
peared greater than the fruits would justify. This hesi- 
tancy was a glaring testimony to the loose thinking and 
careless literary habits of those days. But the haste 
with which Kant prosecuted the authorship of his work, 
apart from the thoughts employed in its elaboration 
into a system, furnishes some ground of apology for the 
failure of the public to fathom it. " I wrote," he says 
in a letter to Moses Mendelssohn, " this product of at 
least twelve ytears of diligent reflection within a period 
of from four to five months, paying indeed the greatest 
attention to the contents, but unable, borne away, as it 
were, upon the wings of thought, to bestow that care 
upon the style which might have promoted a readier 
insight into my meaning on the part of the reader." 

12 



158 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 

Several years now pass by, and the great work i& 
still neglected. Perhaps it is false, or mayhap it is ill- 
timed. Finally Schulze hits upon the difficulty when 
he conjectures that, if men only knew what was in the 
book they would not only read it, but be ravished with 
its contents. Thereupon he issues his JElucidations of 
KanCs Critique of Pure Reason. Now people begin 
to open their eyes. The work of Schulze is read by 
everybody, and in turn it serves as an introduction to 
the work of Kant. Soon the universities and reading 
circles demand it, and the whole land is suddenly trans- 
formed into a race of philosophers. The popularity of 
the work is boundless. It is written in a style adapt- 
ed only to systematic thinkers ; but no matter, it be- 
comes a fashion to read it. It is the topic in stage- 
coaches and drawing rooms. Failure to have perused 
Kant's book is a mark of ignorance which receives re- 
buke on every hand. In self-defense every one feels 
bound to read it, if the continued respect of friends can 
reasonably be expected. The work itself is interlarded 
with new terminology and pruned expressions that be- 
tray the constant impress of the author's mind. So, in 
a short time, writers on the various sciences employ 
these very terms as at once the best vehicle for the con- 
veyance of their thoughts and for accession to popu* 
larity. It has its opponents in Hamann, Jacobi, Rei 
marus, Tiedemann, and others ; yet he is a bold spirit 
who dares to attack this object of universal favor. But 
the opposition is insufficient, and the Critique of Pure 
Reason is too strong for these hastily-conceived re- 
joinders. Every department of inquiry is powerfully 
affected by it. Eeligion, logic, metaphysics, law, psy- 
chology, aesthetics, and education are alike molded by 
its plastic touch. Holland and all the north of Europe 
are vocal with its praises. 



Kant's critique of pure reason. 



159 



And now we may ask, wliy such favor shown to- 
ward this new apparition ? Let us delay a moment and 
examine the hard- wrought thoughts of this bachelor-son 
of an obscure saddler. Kant had been profoundly dis- 
gusted with the want of harmony in philosophical spec- 
ulations. The disagreements that he saw in his own 
time were but the continuation of what, he had learned 
from history, was the fact in the days of the heathen 
sages. Following close upon the footsteps of Hume, 
he asked : " How far can human reason go ? Where is 
its limit ? " His Critique was the answer. He showed 
that, if the loose methods of thought were to be con- 
tinued, philosophy, instead of being the hand-maid of 
religion, would be unworthy the attention of the most 
unlettered man. Hence he would recall reason from its 
loffcy flights, and direct its attention solely to self-con- 
sciousness. Only by studying the powers of the mind 
as a datum, he held, can any positive results be gained. 
Using his own illustration of his work, he would do 
for philosophy what Copernicus had done for astronomy 
— reverse metaphysics by referring classes of ideas to 
inner, which before had been referred to outer, causes. 
He granted that, for some things, man's reason is 
sufficient. The existence of God, the doctrine of original 
sin, and the soul's immortality need no Scripture to 
reveal them. They are intuitive subjects of knowledge. 
But these truths are extremely limited; man needs 
what nature has not given him. Kant's distinction be- 
tween practical and speculative reason was in favor of 
the former, since its aim was wisdom. But speculative 
reason is often exerted for its own gratification. Hence 
its results are frequently useless and ephemeral. His 
grand conclusion is, that no object can be known to ns 
except in proportion as it is apprehended by our per- 



160 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



eeptions, and definable by our faculties of cognition ; 
consequently we know nothing, per se^ but only by 
appearances. Our knowledge of real objects is limited 
by experience. 

Witli regard to the general character of the critical 
system of Kant, an acjute author says : " It confined 
itself to a contemplation of the phenomena of conscious- 
ness, and attempted to ascertain by analysis, not of our 
conceptions but of the faculties of the soul, certain in- 
variable and necessary principles of knowledge ; pro- 
ceeding to define their usage, and to form an estimate 
of them collectively with reference to \hi(d\v formal char- 
acter ; in which investigation the distinctions and defini- 
tions of those faculties adopted by the school of Wolff 
were presumed to be valid. It exalted the human mind 
by making it the centre of its system ; but at the same 
time confined and restricted it by means of the conse- 
quences deduced. It discouraged also the spirit of dog- 
matic speculation, and the ambition of demonstrating 
all things by means of mere intellectual ideas, making 
the faculties of acquiring knowledge the measure of 
things capable of being known, and assigning the pre- 
eminence to practical Reason rather than to speculation, 
in virtue of its end — wisdom ; which is the highest that 
reason can aspire to, because to act virtuously is a 
universal and unlimited, but to acquire knowledge only 
a conditional, duty. It had the effect of mitigating the 
dogmatical and speculative tendencies of the mind, and 
the extravagant attempt to prove everything by means 
of conceptions of the understanding. It proscribed mys- 
ticism and circumscribed the provinces of science and 
belief. It taught men to discriminate and appreciate 
the grounds, the tendency, the defects, and partial views, 
as well as the excellencies of other systems ; at the 



kant's opmioNS. 



161 



same time that it embodied a lively principle for awak- 
ening and strengthening the interest attaching to gen- 
uine philosophical research. It afforded to philosophy 
a firm and steady centre of action in the unchangeable 
nature of the human mind. In general it may be ob- 
served that the theory of Kant constructed little ; and 
rather tended to destroy the structures of an empty 
dogmatism of the understanding and prepare, by means 
of self-knowledge, the way for a better state of philo- 
sophical science ; seeking in reason itself the principles 
on which to distinguish the several parts of the phi- 
losophy." ^ 

Kant had but little to say concerning the positive 
truths of Christianity. He respected the character of 
Christ, and spoke reverently of the church and her doc- 
trines. Morality, with him, was developed into religion, 
not religion into morality. The so-called revelation was 
only the mythical copy of the moral law already im- 
planted in our nature. He believed in a universal re- 
ligion. Everything peculiar and won by struggle 
should be given up ; all strife of opinions should cease 
at once. Kant designed, in the main, to curb the illicit 
exercise of Eeason, but his failure to indorse the great 
doctrines of our faith, because revealed, threw him on 
the side of the Rationalists. His adoption of God's 
existence, the soul's immortality, human freedom, and 
original sin, was not due to his belief in these doctrines 
as revealed, but as intuitive. He gradually became a 
devotee to his owq method of thinking, and it was his 
aim not to teach what but how to think. He often told 
his students that he had no intention or desire to teach 
them philosophy, but how to philosophize. It was 
through Kant that the terms Rationalist^ — one who 

^ Tennemann, Manual of Historij of Philosophy, pp. 407, 408. 



162 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



declares natural religion alone to be morally necessary, 
though he may admit revelation, — NatiLvaU^t — one who 
denies the reality of a supernatural divine revelation, — 
and Supernaturalist — one who considers the belief in 
revelation a necessaiy element in religion, came into use, 
and Rationalism and Supernaturalism became the prin- 
cipal division of theological schools.^ 

As Descartes had broken up the scholastic philoso- 
phy by considering man apart from his experience, so 
Kant now gave the death-blow to the philosophy of 
Protestant Germany by looking at the mind apart 
fi'om its speculations. " The moral effect of his philos- 
ophy," says Mr. Farrar, was to expel the French j 
Materialism and llluminism, and to give depth to the i; 
moral perceptions ; its religious effect was to strengthen J 
the appeal to reason and the moral judgment as the \ 
test of religious truth ; to render miraculous communi- 
cation of moral instruction useless, if not absurd ; and 
to reawaken the attempt which had been laid aside 
since the Wolfian philosophy of endeavoring to find a 
philosophy of religion." ^ f 
Among the antagonists of Kant, Jacobi was perhaps i 
the most powerful. He was not content that, in these ■ 
metaphysical speculations, reason should reign supreme. ■ 
His belief was that feeling was of as much importance 
as the deductions of the intellect. He mastered the 
various systems of philosophy and rejected them, Kant^s 
among the rest, as unfit for the acceptance and pursuit 
of responsible beings. The two principles which fur- 
nish the key to his views were that religion lies in the 
feeling, and that this feeling, which exists in every ]| 
man's heart, is not reflected, but original. His dissatis- fl 

^ Appleton's Am. GyclopcBdia — Article German Theology. ^ 
' Critical History of Free Thought^ p. 230. 



FICHTE^S OPmiOlS'S. 



163 



i action with all systems induced him to term himself the 
Unpliilosophical^ and it was with utter disgust that 
he was led to declare the foundation of all speculative 
philosophy to be only a great cavity, in which we look 
in vain, as down into an awful abyss. With him, as 
with Coleridge, Faith begins where Reason ends. 

The two bright stars after Kant were Fichte and 
Schelling. The former commenced with the system of 
the great Konigsberg teacher, and developed it on the 
negative side, contending that the whole material world 
has no existence apai-t from ourselves, and that it only 
appears to us in conformity with certain laws of our mind. 
He aimed to found a system which might illustrate, by 
a single principle, the material and formal properties 
of all science ; establish the unity of plan which the crit- 
ical system had failed to maintain ; and solve that most 
difficult of all problems regarding the connection be- 
tween our conceptions and their objects. His views of 
God are the most glaring defect of his sytsem. He con- 
tended that we cannot attribute to the Deity intelli- 
gence or personality without making him a finite being 
like ourselves ; that it is a species of profanation to con- 
ceive of him as a separate essence, since such a concep- 
tion implies the existence of a sensible being limited by 
space and time ; that we cannot impute to him even 
existence without compounding him with sensible na- 
tures ; that no satisfactory explanation has yet been 
given of the manner in which the creation of the world 
could be effected by God ; that the idea and expectation 
of happiness is a delusion ; and that, when we form our 
notions of the Deity in accordance with such imagina- 
tions, we only worship the idol of our own passions, — 
the prince of this world.^ 

* Tennemann, Manual of History of PMlosopliy , pp. 429-430- 



164 



HISTORY OF EATIONAUSM. 



Schelling was a man of ardent, sanguine tempera- 
ment, and it was his natural proclivities that gave rise 
to his system of philosophy. He attributes a real ex- 
istence to the material as well as to the immaterial 
world, but permits it a different mode of existence. 
He makes history a necessity. This natural philosophy 
conveys to us no knowledge of God, and the little it 
does reveal appears opposed to religion. What God per- 
forms takes place because it must he. Schelling created 
two opposite and parallel philosophic sciences, the 
transcendental philosophy and the philosophy of nature. 
He was a pantheist in identifying the Deity with nature, 
and in making Him subject to laws. He clothed his ideas 
in the beautiful fancies of his own vivid imagination, 
and in him we find the poet, not giving forth verses from 
his lyre, but delivering philosophical oracles. 

What Schleiermacher was to theology Hegel became 
to philosophy. He was the turning-point from doubt 
and fruitless theories to a more positive and settled sys- 
tem of thinking. He was, when young, a decided Ka- 
tionalist ; and his Life of Christy though yet unpub- 
lished, is said by one who has seen it to be a represen- 
tation of the Messiah as a divine man, in whom all is 
pure and sublime, and who made himself remarkable 
chiefly by his triumphs over vice, falsehood, hatred and 
the servile spirit of his age. He endeavored to explain 
the reason for Christianity in the woi'ld. He longed for 
a positive religion. His philosophy is reducible to a 
philosophy of nature, which has quite a different mean- 
ing from that of Schelling, for, with Hegel, it is only the 
expression of the passage to another being ; and to the 
philosophy of the mind, which considers thought reflect- 
ing itself on itself, and showing itself by the mind in the 
sciences of law and morality, in the state, history, reli- 



SEEVICE OF THE PHILOSOPHEES. 



165 



gion, and the arts. The religion which is deduced fi'om 
this system may be said to consist of the objective ex- 
istence of the infinite mind in the finite, for mind is only 
for mind ; consequently God exists only in being thought 
of and in thinking. In the philosophy of nature intel- 
ligence and God are lost in objective nature. Hegel al- 
lows them a distinct and separate existence, but refers 
them to a common principle which, according to him, is 
the absolute idea, or God. In this case, objective nature 
is only the absolute idea going out of itself, individuali- 
zing itself, and giving itself limits, though it is infinite. 
Thus the intelligence of all men, and external nature, 
are only manifestations of the absolute idea. It is a 
mournful tribute that M. Saintes pays to his memory 
when he says, as the sum of his labors, that " he per- 
verted all the Christian opinions which he attempted to 
restore." As little flattering is M. Quinet's testimony, 
that " he saw in Christianity no more than an idea, the 
religious worth of which is independent of the testimonies 
of history." 

This was indeed a race of thinkers who have been 
equaled in strength in but few periods of history. 
Coming in regular succession, their systems sprang from 
Kant's philosophy, and constituted the growth of his 
wonderful achievement. They tended to withdraw the 
flippant spirit of criticism to a more serious and modest 
path of inquiry, and to make men look more at their own 
weakness than at their greatness. But what a mass of 
subtleties do we have to pass through to get at the sub- 
stance of their speculations ! There is something so 
unsatisfactory in the study of them, that we find relief 
only in the knowledge that the Bible contains the true 
basis of all sound thinking on the great themes con- 
nected with the well-being and destiny of man. The 



166 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



plainest statements of the word of God are more val- 
uable than all these vaporings about the non-Ego^ the 
Idcal^ and Self-hood. Simplicity is bliss. 

"Yon cottager wlio weaves at her own door 
Pillow and bobbins, all her little store, 
Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, 
Shuffling her threads about the live long day, 
Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night 
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light; 
She for her humble sphere by nature fit, 
Has little understanding and no wit; 
Receives no praise, but though her lot be such, 
Toilsome and indigent, she renders much ; 
Just knows and knows no more, her Bible true; 
And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes 
Her title to a treasure in the skies." 

But yet we grant to these men the meed of having 
meant well, and of reforming the philosophy and litera- 
ture of their times. The immediate effect of their 
views was decidedly in favor of Rationalism, because 
they almost uniformly deny the absolute authority of ^ 
the Scriptures. They grant too much to reason. While 
Kant would drive the truant mind back to self-contem- 
plation, he terminates by giving to reason a value and 
dignity so great that it becomes entitled to decide upon 
matters of faith. Their theories, spun out at such 
length and concluding in so little satisfaction, make us 
]-ejoice that we have not to depend upon philosophy for 
guidance in matters of either the intellect or heart. 
They thought independently of the Bible, and here lies 
the ground of all failure to obtain positive results in 
metaphysics. The Scriptures furnish everything noble 
and real, and when philosophy aims to supply a sub- 
stitute for them it always labors in vain. 

We wonder at the tropic luxuriance of Schelling's 
thoughts, but we are soon convinced of their little prac- 



INSUFEICIENCY OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 167 

tical purpose when we recall the fact that he considered 
the revelation of the gospel as no more than one of the 
accidents of the eternal revelation of God in nature and 
in history. If Schelling and all these strong minds had 
commenced their investigations with the word of God 
as their basis, there is no telling how far they might 
have ministered to an immediate and thorough revival of 
faith. But failing to do this, their work has been more 
doubtful and tardy. It is a very plain fact that the 
church cannot look to any other than to a Christian 
philosophy for the conservation or regeneration of her 
torpid powers. Never has she been thoroughly bene- 
fited by the immediate agency of any other system. 

There is one way, however, in which speculative 
philosophy has indirectly proved the aid of religion. It 
has strengthened and quickened the mental action of the 
people, and they have through its agency been able to 
look with clearer ken upon the truths of Scripture. 
However, after it has reached the goal of its task, we 
see so little that is truly valuable and worth preserving, 
that we are compelled to fall back upon the Christian 
revelation as our only chart on the troubled sea of met- 
aphysical discussion. When we look at the field opened 
for thought in the word of God we find it ample and 
safe. It would be well for every young mind about en- 
tering upon the uncertain mazes of philosophical 
speculation, to ponder deeply over these golden words 
from Isaac Taylor's Saturday Mjening : " That portion 
of Heavenly Wisdom which, under such circumstances, 
survives and is cherished, will be just the first articles of 
belief, — ^the Saving Rudiments of Spiritual Life. Of 
these the Head of the church himself takes care lest 
faith should utterly disappear from the earth. But be- 
side the inestimable jewel of elementary knowledge— 



168 



HISTOEY OF EATIONAUSM. 



the price of which can never be told — does there not 
rest within the folds of the Inspired Book an inex- 
haustible store, which the industry of man, piously di- 
rected, ought to elicit ; but which if men neglect it, the 
Lord will not force upon their notice ? It is this hidden 
treasure which should animate the ambition of vigorous 
and devout minds. From such at second hand, the body 
of the faithful are to receive it, if at all ; and if not so 
obtained for them, and dealt out by their teachers, 
nothing will be more meager, unfixed, almost infantile, 
than the faith of Christians." 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE REIGN OF THE WEIMAR OIROLE— REVOLUTION IN 

EDUCATION AND HYMNOLOGY. 

The systems of tlie great philosopliical minds whom 
we have contemplated were remarkable for their har- 
mony. As we now look back upon them we do not see 
shapeless and unfitting fragments, but a superstructure 
of rare symmetry and grace. Jacobi was the leaven of 
improvement, and it was the mission of that devout 
man to continue to some extent the habit of respectful 
regard for God's word among intelligent circles of 
society. All who were unwilling to become votaries of 
reason were his carefnl readers and enthusiastic ad- 
mirers. 

What we thus see developed in philosophy was 
equally manifest in regard to literature. There arose, 
as if by the enchanter's wand, a group of literary 
giants at Weimar, an insignificant town on the outskirts 
of the Thuringian Forest, who wielded an influence 
which was destined to be felt in coming ages. Through 
a combination of circumstances, Weimar became their 
common home. It grew into a modern Parnassus, and 
to this day bears the name of the German Athens. 
Karl August, imitating the example of Augustus 
Caesar, gathered around him as numerous and powerful 
a cluster of literary men as his scanty revenue would 



170 



HISTOEY OF KATIONALISM. 



allow. He paid but little regard to their tlieologica, 
differences ; all that he cared for was their possession of 
the truly literary spirit. His little principality, of 
which this was the capital, could not possibly be ele- 
vated into either a second or third rate power. All 
hope of- great influence being cut off in this direction, 
be secured the presence of those chiefs of letters who 
gave him a name and a power secured to but few in 
any age. The town of Weimar possesses a calm rustic 
beauty by which the traveler cannot fail to be im- 
pressed. You see only a few traces of architectural 
taste, but the memory of the departed worthies who 
once walked the winding streets is now the gloiy of 
the place. There, the church where Herder preached 
now stands ; near by, the slab that covers the dust of 
Wieland ; yonder, the humble cottage of Schiller, with 
the room just as it was when the mute minstrel was 
borne from it to his home in the earth; across the 
brook is Goethe's country villa ; and back in the grove, 
the table whereon he wrote. There is a quiet sadness in 
the whole town, as if nothing were left but the mere 
recollection of what it once was. How different the j^ic- 
ture a hundred years ago, when all the literary world 
looked thither for the last oi*acle from one of these 
high-priests of poesy ! Book-publishers went there to 
make proposals for the editorship of magazines, or for 
some other new literary enterprise. Napoleon himself 
craved an audience with Goethe, and it is the strongest 
grudge held by the Germans against the master of their 
literature that the oppressor of the fatherland was not 
denied his request. Young men went to Weimar from 
all parts of Europe to kiss the hand of these great 
transformers of aesthetic taste. There was not a sover- 
eign within the pale of civilization who did not envy 



herder's position. 



171 



Karl August's treasures. The story of tlie literary 
achievements, of the Platonic friendships, and of the 
evening entertaiments of Weimar, forms one of the 
most remarkable chapters in the whole history of letters. 

The name of Herder demands our prominent notice 
because of its intimate connection with the theological 
movement we have been tracing. He was eminently 
adapted to his times. Perfectly at home with his gen- 
eration, he looked upon his contemporaries as brethren, 
and aroused himself manfully to serve them in every in- 
terest We notice in all his works a careful study to 
meet the emergency then pressing upon society. We 
will not say that Herdei- wrote every work just as it 
should have been, and that he was evangelical through- 
out. This he was not, but he was greatly in advance 
of his predecessors. Amid the labyrinth of philosoph- 
ical speculations it is interesting and refreshing to meet 
with an author who, though endowed with the mind of 
a philosopher, was content to pass for a poet, or even 
for an essayist. His was a mind of rare versatility. 
What he was not capable of putting his hand to scarce- 
ly deserved the name of study. In philosophy, practi- 
cal religion, literature, church history, education and ex- 
egesis he labored with almost equal success. He was 
the instrument of God, not to raise each of the crushed 
elements of Christian power to a lofty vitality, but to 
contribute to the moderate elevation of nearly e.very 
one of them. It might be expected that his later wri- 
tings would not abound in such hearty tributes to 
devout religious life as we find so glowingly expressed 
in his earlier productions. The atmosphere of Weimar 
favored a perverted growth. The personal acquaintance 
of the men who surrounded him increased his literary 
power but did not make his religion more fervent and 



172 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



powerful. His training had been in tlie old purify- 
ing furnace of Pietism. His father had been a rare 
specimen of that class of devout householders, who, 
back in the days of Spener and Francke, were the real 
glory of the German people. Young Herder was ac- 
customed to family worship every day, when the hard 
duties of temporal life were forgotten by those engaged 
in singing, in the leisurely reading of the Scriptures, and 
in prayer. One of the first books that had fallen 
under his notice was Arndt's " True Cliristianityr 
It was this work that inspired him with that re- 
spect for religion which never left him in subse- 
quent life. 

Herder's creed was the improvement of man. He 
expressed it in one word, humanity. But by this term 
he meant more than most men conceive in whole vol- 
umes. With him, it was that development and elevation 
of the race for which every true man should labor. We 
do not come into this life with a perfect humanity ; but 
we have the germ of it, and therefore we should con- 
tribute to its growth with unceasing energy. We are 
born with a divine element within us, and it is for the ma- 
turity of this personal gift that all great and good men, 
such as lawgivers, discoverers, philosophers, poets, 
artists and every truly noble friend of his race, have 
striven, in the education of children, by the various in- 
stitutions designed to foster their individual taste. To 
beautify humanity is the great problem of humanity. It 
must be done ; man must be elevated by one long and 
unwearied effort, or he will relax into barbarism, 
Christianity presents us, in the purest way, with the 
purest humanity. 

Herder was greatly interested in the poetic features 
of the Bible. His work on Hebrew Poesy is fuU of 



herder's view of the bible. 



173 



his warm attaclimeiit to the inspired pictures of early 
oriental life and history. Whatever divested the Scrip- 
tures of this eastern glow received his outright indig- 
nation. He censured Michaelis for having criticised all 
the lieart out of the time-honored and God-given record. 
He compared the critical labors of the Rationalists to 
squeezing a lemon; and the Bible that they would 
give, he said, ''was nothing save a juiceless rind." He 
totally rejected the scientific reading of the Bible for 
common purposes ; and maintained, with great ardor, 
that the more simple and human our reading of God's 
word is, the nearer do we approach God's will. We 
must make use of our own thoughts, and we must 
imagine living scenes, with the inspired words as our 
thought-outlines. The whole policy of the new class 
of critics, he believed, was a thoroughly mistaken one. 
Instead of discarding the pictorial biblical beauties, as 
they did with a few hasty dashes of the pen, he would 
elevate them to a loftier status, and lead the rising gen- 
eration to imbibe their spirit as a useful element for 
later life. In his opinion, many of the Rationalists had 
not the keen insight into the marvelous beauty of the 
Bible which all should possess who would undertake 
to elucidate its language and doctrines. They were, 
therefore, not competent to decide upon it. The only 
proper method of studying the Scriptures for the in- 
struction of others is by the exercise of a fine poetic 
sentiment. Hence the best poet makes the best exegete. 
This reminds us of Schiller's idea of historiography. 
Schiller said that, in his writing of history, he did not 
intend to feel continually hampered by the sequence of 
events, but that he would write as his own imagination 
approved. High above facts would he place aesthetic 
taste. A beautiful fancy ! But heaven be praised that 



174 



mSTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



all historians are not SchiEers, and that all commenta- 
tors are not Herders. 

From this representation of Herder's tenacity for the 
records of inspiration, and particularly for the Mosaic 
accounts, one would be led to infer that his attachment 
was due solely to his lofty views of the supernatural 
origin of these revelations. But we cannot think this 
was the fact. A careful estimate of his underlying 
sympathies leads us to conclude that he loved the 
Bible, not because it was inspired, as much as because 
it was the highest, earliest, and simplest embodiment of 
poetry, — for it traces out those things in our history 
which we are most interested in knowing. The poetic 
beauty of the Scriptures entranced him. Had each 
chapter of our canon been written in stately prose, 
Herder would have been one of its coldest admirers. 
He ransacked the myths and legends of various nations, 
and dwelt upon the stories of giants and demi-gods with 
scarcely less enthusiasm than if discoursing on the 
building of Babel or on the gift of the law on Sinai. 
Herder disliked the theories of Kant with cordial aver- 
sion. Of course the Konigsberg sage had nothing in 
common with the Weimar rhapsodist. Had Herder 
only given a prominence to his belief in the fact of in- 
spiration equally with an admiration of the method of 
it, his service to the cause of practical religion would 
have been incalculable. Yet, in his views of the person 
of Christ, he was far in advance of the times. He con 
ceived Christ not as a mere innovating teacher, but a« 
the great centre of faith. His belief in the sufficiency 
of the atonement stands out in bold contrast with the 
barren faith of his Weimar associates, who had such 
lofty ideas of human excellence that they thought man 
needed only one thing more to complete his perfection, 



herdee's view of cheist. 



175 



— ^his emergence from ignorance into taste and knowl- 
edge. But Herder could see an abyss of depravity in 
the heart along with the germ of excellence. He held 
that Christ alone was able to annihilate the former and 
develop the latter. He believed that the first three 
evangelists gave the human side of Christ's character, 
and that it was John who revealed his divinity. With 
these four accounts before us we cannot be at a loss to 
form a sound opinion on the mission of the Messiah. 
He came to seek and save the lost. What he accom- 
plished could have been effected by no other agency. 
Herder's own words are : " Jesus must be looked upon 
as the first real fountain of purity, freedom, and salva- 
tion to the world." Of the Lord's Supper he said, on 
his entrance upon his pastoral duties at Weimar, " The 
Lord's Supper should not be a mere word and picture, 
but a fact and truth. We should taste and see what 
joys God has prepared for us in Jesus Christ when we 
have intercourse with him at his own table. In every 
event and accident of life we should feel that we are 
his brethren and are sitting at one table, and that, 
when we refresh ourselves at the festival of our Saviour, 
we are resting in the will and love of the great King 
of the world as in the bosom of the Father. The high, 
still joy of Christ, and the spirit which prevails in the 
eternal kingdom of heaven should speak out fi'om our- 
selves, influence others, and testify of our own love." It 
is a lamentable reflection, however, that Herder's lofty 
views of the mission of Christ, which had been formed 
in the paternal home, were, in common with many other 
evangelical views, doomed to an unhappy obscuration 
upon the advance of his later years by frequent inter- 
course with more skeptical minds. 

One of the chief services rendered the church by 



176 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



Herder was his persistent attempt to elevate the pas 
toral office to its original and proper dignity. He held 
that the pastor of the church should not be solely a 
learned critic but the minister of the common people. 
In his day, the pastor was considered the mere instru- 
ment of the state, a sort of theological policeman ; — a 
degradation which Herder could hardly permit himself 
to think of without violent indignation. In his Lettei's 
on the Study of TJieology^ published in 1780, and in 
subsequent smaller works, he sought to evoke a gener- 
ation of theologians who, being imbued with his own 
ideas of humanity, would betake themselves to the edi- 
fication of the humble mind. lie would eject scholasti- 
cism from the study of the Bible, and show to his read- 
ers that simplicity of inquiry is the safest way to happy 
results. He would place the modern pastor, both in his 
relations to the cause of humanity and in the respect 
awarded him by the world, close beside the patriarch 
and prophet of other days. And that man, in his opin- 
ion, was not worthy the name of pastor who could neg- 
lect the individual requirements of the soul. Accord- 
ing to Herder, the theologian should be trained from 
-childhood into the knowledge of the Bible and of prac- 
tical religion. Youths should have ever before them 
the example of pious parents, who are bringing them 
up with a profound conviction of the doctrines of di- 
vine truth. To choose theology for a profession from 
mercenary aims would preclude all possibility of pastoral 
usefulness. " Let prayer and reading the Bible be your 
morning and evening food," was his advice to a young 
preacher. Some of the most eloquent words from his 
pen were ^vritten against the customary moral preaching 
which so much afflicted him. " Why don't you come 
down from your pulpits," he asks, " for they cannot be 



HERDER AS A PREACHER. 



of any advantage to you in preaching such things? 
What is the use of all these Gothic churches, altars, and 
such matters ? No, indeed ! Religion, true religion, 
must return to the exercise of its original functions, or a 
preacher will become the most indefinite, idle, and in- 
different thing on earth. Teachers of religion, true ser- 
vants of God's word, what have you to do in our cen- 
tury ? The harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are 
few. Pray the Lord of the harvest that he will send 
out laborers who at ill be something more than bare 
teachers of wisdom and virtue. More than this, Help 
yourselves ! " 

The counsel given by Herder to others was practised 
first by himself He lived among critical minds, who 
spui'ned humble pastoral work, but he felt it his duty, 
and therefore discharged it to the best of his ability. 
His preaching was lichly lucid, and not directed to the 
most intelligent class of his auditors. He took up a 
plain truth and strove to make it plainer. Yet, while 
the masses were most benefited by his simplicity of 
pulpit conversation, those gifted men who thought with 
him arose from their seats profoundly impressed with 
the dignity and value of the gospel. A \vitty writer 
of the time, Sturz, gives an account of Herder's preach- 
ing that throws some light upon the manner in which 
the plain, earnest exposition of God's word always 
affected the indifferent auditor. "You should have 
seen," says this man, " how every rustling sound was 
hushed and each cmious glance was chained upon him 
in a very few minutes. We were as still as a Moravian 
congregation. All hearts opened themselves spontane- 
ously ; every eye hung upon him and wept unwonted 
tears. Deep sighs escaped from every breast. My 
dear friend, nobody preaches like him. Else religion 



178 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



would be to every one just what it should be, the most 
valuable and reliable friend of men. He explained the 
gospel of the day without fanaticism, yet with a grand 
simplicity which needed not to ransack the world for 
its wisdom, its figures of speech, or its scholastic arts. 
It was no religious study, huiied in its three divisions 
at the heart of stony sinners ; nor was it what some 
would call a current article of pulpit manufacture. It 
was no cold, heathen, moral lecture, which sought noth- 
ing but Socrates in the Bible, and would therefore teach 
that we can do without both Christ and the Scriptures. 
But he preached the faith which works by love, the 
same which was first preached by the God of love, the 
kind which teaches to suffer and bear and hope, and 
which, by its rest and contentment, rewards bountifully 
and independently of all the joys and sorrows of the 
world. It seems to me that the scholars of the apostles 
must have preached thus, for they did not tie them- 
selves down to the hard dogmatics of their faith, and 
thei-efore did not play with technical terms, as children 
with their counting pennies." William von Humboldt 
said of Herder's sermons that they were " very attrac- 
tive : one always found them too short, and wished 
them of double length." Schiller spoke of his sermons 
as plain, natural, and adapted to the common life, and 
adds that Herder's preaching was " more pleasing to him 
than any other pulpit exercise to which he had ever 
listened." 

Herder was the great theological writer of Weimar, 
and as such his impression upon theology and religion 
in general was decided. Though he opposed the Kant- 
ian philosophy, because of its petrifying tendency, his 
antagonism was counteracted by others of the Weimar 
celebrities. Goethe and Schiller eclipsed all other 



SCHILLER THE POET OF lEEEDOM. 



179 



names in their department of thought, and were the 
culmination of the new type of literature. Herder 
might preach, but it was only to a comparatively small 
world. Goethe and Schiller were, on all points of lit- 
erature, the oracles of Europe. Like Kant, they 
stamped their own impress upon theology, which at that 
day was plastic and weak beyond all conception. Un- 
der the Konigsberg thinker it became a great philo- 
sophical system as cold as Mont Blanc. Then came 
Poetry and Romance, which, though they could give a 
fresh glow to the face, had no power to breathe life into 
the prostrate form. 

Schiller shares with Goethe the loftiest niche in the 
pantheon of German literature. But the former is more 
beloved than the latter, for the reason that his country- 
men think that he had more soul. Schiller endeared 
himself to his land because of his ardent aspirations to 
political freedom. The poet of freedom is long-lived, 
and France will no sooner forget her Beranger, nor 
America her Whittier, than the German fatherland will 
become oblivious of Schiller. Like Herder, Schiller had 
been trained carefully in household religion. In his 
earliest outbursts of religious feeling there prevailed that 
ardent and devout spirit which, had it been fostered by 
a healthy popular taste, might have matured into some- 
thing so transcendently brilliant and useful, that the 
writer of The Rohhers would have proved one of the 
reformers of his people. If his education had reaped its 
appropriate harvest, his probable bearing upon the re- 
generation of Germany can be but faintly imagined by 
the aid of Klopstock's example. These were the sincere 
thoughts of Schiller's over-burdened soul when, one 
Sabbath in 1777, he addressed himself to the Deity: 
God of truth, Father of light, I look to thee with the 



180 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



first rays of the morning sun, and I bow before thee. I 
Thou seest me, O God ! Thou seest from afar every I 
pulsation of my praying heart. Thou knowest well my 
earnest desii-e for truth. Heavy doubt often veils my . 
soul in night ; thou knowest how anxious my heail is I 
within me, and how it goes out for heavenly light. Oh | 
yes ! A friendly ray has often fallen from thee upon 
my shadowed soul. I saw the awful abyss on whose | 
brink I was trembling, and I have thanked the kind f 
hand that drew me back in safety. Still be with me, j 
my God and Father, for these are days when fools stalk | 
about and say, ^ there is no God.' Thou hast given me | 
my bii'th, O my Creator, in these days when supersti- | 
tion rages at my right hand and skepticism scoffs at my | 
left. So I often stand and quake in the storm ; and 
oh, how often would the bending reed break if thou 
didst not prevent it ; thou, the mighty Preserver of all ' 
thy creatures and Father of all who seek thee. 

" What am I without truth, without her leadership 
through life's labyrinths ? A wanderer through the \ 
wilderness, overtaken by the night, with no friendly 
hand to lead me and no guiding star to show me the ] 
path. Doubt, uncertainty, skepticism ! You begin 
with anguish and you end with despair. But Truth, 
thou leadest us safely through life, bearest the torch 
before us in the dark vale of death, and bringest us 
home to heaven, where thou wast born. O my God, 
keep my heart in peace, in that holy rest during which : 
Truth loves best to visit us. The sun refuses to reflect ! 
itself in the stormy sea, but it is down into its calm 
miiTor-like flood that it beams its face. Even thus keep : 
my heart at peace, O God, that it may be fit to know |i 
thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent ; for this i 
alone is the truth which strengthens the heart and ele- 



Schiller's prayer. 



181 



vates the soul. If I have truth, then I have Christ ; if 
I have Christ, then have I God ; and if I have God, 
then I have everything. And could I ever permit my- 
self to be robbed of this precious gem, this heaven- 
rea'ching blessing by the wisdom of this world, which 
is foolishness in thy sight ? 'No. He who hates truth 
I will call my enemy, but he who seeks it with simple 
heart I will embrace as my brother and my friend. 

"The bell rings that calls me to the sanctuary. 
1 hasten thither to make good my confession, to 
strengthen myself in the truth, and to prejDare myself 
for death and eternity. O lead me in such a path, my 
Father, and so open my heart to the impressions of 
truth that I may be strong enough to make it known 
to my fellow men. They know that thou art their 
God and Father, and that thou didst send Jesus thy 
Son, and the Holy Spirit who was to testify of the 
iruth. They can therefore have strength for every grief 
of this life, and for the sorrows of death a bright hope 
of a happy immortality. 

" Now, my God, thou canst take everything fi'om 
me, yea, every earthly joy and blessing ; but leave me 
truth, and I have joy and blessing enough ! " 

It was the young Schiller who wrote these ecstatic 
^vords at a time when he contemplated entering the 
ministry. A few years passed by, and all was changed. 
He grew into a sincere admirer, we might say wor- 
shiper, of the heathen faith. He complained that all 
the life and spirit were taken out of the Bible by the 
Rationalists, but he did nothing to remedy their error. 
He became absorbed in the spirit of classic times. The 
autiquity of Greece was far dearer to him than that of 
Palestine, and his poetic fancy was excited to a greater 
tension by the tales of heathen deities than by the his- 



182 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



tories of tlie Bible. He was a devotee of Kant, and his 
poetry was largely made up of that pliiloso])lier's meta- 
physics. Yet, in Schiller's hand, abstractions became 
living pictures. He knew how to speak clearly, and 
his popularity is evidence to the fact that his generations 
of readers have plainly understood him. 

While Schiller represented Kant in verse, Goethe 
did the same thing with Schelling's philosophy. The 
influence of the latter poet on religion was very perni- 
cious. He expressed himself favorably of the Bible, 
but he claimed that it could only educate the people up 
to a little higher stage of intelligence and taste. He 
was intensely egotistic, and totally indifferent to all 
religious belief. His false idolatry of art and his enthu- 
siasm arrayed for heathendom, in all the beautiful 
charms of the most seductive poetry, had a tendency fatal 
to the cause of Christianity and to all public and private 
virtue.^ He expressed himself sometimes as very favor- 
able toward the Roman Catholic worship, and the ad- 
herents of that faith quote his words of approbation 
mth evident pride. In \ns> Autobiography he pays some 
high compliments to the seven sacraments of the Ro- 
manists. He made several visits to the beautiful little 
Catholic church dedicated to St. Roch, situated just 
above Bingen on the Rhine. He presented it with an 
altar-piece, and on one occasion said, " Whenever I enter 
this church I always wish I were a Catholic priest." 
But Goethe's love and admii*ation cf Catholicism were 
due rather to his attachment to the old works of art 
than to that particular system of faith and worshij). 
The Romish church was the conservator of the art- 
triumphs of the Middle Ages. She laid gi'eat store by 
her paintings and statuary, and had been the patroness 

^ Mohler's Symbolism : Memoir of Author. 



Goethe's influence on theology. 183 

of tiie arts ever since the wealth of noblemen and kings 
began to be poured into her lap. Goethe loved her 
because she loved art. The key to this only evidence 
of religious principle lies in his own words, as he once 
expressed himself on contemplating a painting of the 
old German school. " Down to the period of the Ref- 
ormation,'* he said, " a spirit of indescribable sweetness, 
solace, and hope seems to live and breathe in all these 
paintings — everything in them seems to announce the 
kingdom of heaven. But since tJie Reformation^ some- 
thing painful^ desolate^ almost evil characterizes worhs 
of art ; and, instead of faith, shepticism is often trails- 
parent^'' 

Our plan precludes an estimate of Goethe's literary 
achievements. But the influence of his productions on 
theology was, in the main, as destructive as if he had 
written nothing but uncompromising Rationalism. He 
was the head of the Weimar family. He had a cool, 
careful judgment. Schiller was excitable and impulsive ; 
but Goethe was always stoical, regarding holy things 
as convenient for the more rapid advance of civilization, 
but not absolutely necessary for the salvation of the 
soul. He directed the literature of Europe. In popu- 
larity Schiller was his peer, yet in real power over the 
minds and lives of others no one was a match for 
Goethe. Other men at Weimar, such as Wieland, 
Knebel, and Jean Paul, were admired, but Goethe was 
the cynosure of all eyes. He was always thinking what 
next to write, and when he issued a new play, poem, 
or romance, a sensation was made wherever the German 
and French tongues were spoken. 

Contemporaneously with these literary influences, 
which greatly increased the power and prestige of 
Rationalism, there was a gradual transformation of the 



184 



HISTOEY OF KATIONALISM. 



training and instruction of tlie cliildren of Geimany. 
A tliorouo;!! infusion of doubt into the minds of the 
youth of the land was all that was now needed to com- 
plete the sovereignty of skepticism. 

It cannot be disputed that there were serious de- 
fects in the educational system alread}^ prevalent. The 
Latin schools instituted by Melanchthon were still in 
existence, but they had become mere machines. Chil- 
dren were compelled to commit the dryest details to 
memory. The most useless exercises were elevated to 
great importance, and years were spent in the study 
of many branches that could be of no possible benefit in 
either the professions or the trades. The j)rimary schools 
were equally defective. There was no such thing as the 
pleasant, developing influence of the mature over the 
young mind. The same defect had already contributed 
to the spread of Rationalism, but the Rationalists were 
now shrewd enough to seize upon this very evil and 
use it as an instrument of strength and expansion. 

Basedow was the first innovator in education, and, 
glaring as his faults were, he succeeded in effecting 
radical changes in the entire circle of youthful training. 
Spmng from a degi*aded class, addicted to vulgar habits, 
and dissipated beyond the countenance of good society, 
this man educated himself, and then set himself up as 
a fit agent for the reformation of German education.^ 
He undertook, by his publication of the PMlaleihy^ and 
of the Theoretical System of Sound Reason^ to in- 
fuse new spirit into the university method of instruc- 
tion. But he had taken too large a measure of his own 
powers, and therefore made but little impression upon 
the circle to which he had addressed himself. But, 
with that restless determination which distinguished 

* Sclilosser, Hutory of the EigTiteeiith Century^ vol. 2, pp. 83-41. 



Basedow's educational scheme. 185 

him througli life, lie began to appeal to the younger 
mind, and contended boldly for the freedom of children 
from their common and long-standing restraints. 

From 1Y63 to 1770 Basedow deluged the whole 
land with his books on education ; and, uniting his ap- 
peals for educational reform with strictures upon the 
validity of the Scriptures, he incurred the sore displeas- 
ure of Gotze, Winkler and others of their class. They 
replied to him, but he was always ready-witted, and 
the press groaned under his repeated and sometimes rib- 
ald rejoinders. He told the nation, in an Address to 
the Friends of Humanity^ that the old excesses would 
soon be done away with, since he was about to publish a 
work and commence an educational institution which 
would rid the children of the shackles of customary in- 
struction. He solicited subscriptions for the issue of his 
elementary book, as it would require numerous plates, 
and be attended with other unusual expenses. His 
manifesto was freely circulated. Replies soon came to 
him, with liberal subscriptions from all parts of Europe. 
Princes and people became infatuated with his great 
plans and wrote him their warm approval. They re- 
mitted large contributions for his assistance. A speci- 
men of his CliiWs Book appeared, and all classes were 
pleased with it. Whatever he promised was accepted 
with avidity because his promises were at once so flat- 
tering and exaggerated. Schlegel and other educators 
tried in vain to make the multitude believe that the 
vulgar mountebank could never fulfill their expectations. 
Basedow proposed to parents, that if they would 
observe his system, all languages and subjects, — gi'am- 
mar, history, and every other study — could be learned, not 
in the tread-miD style, but as an amusement ; that mo- 
rality and religion, both Jewish and Christian, Catholic 



186 



UISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



as well as Protestant, could be easily taught ; that all the 
old bonds of education were henceforth to be broken ; 
and that every great difficulty would hereafter be a pas- 
time. Finally a part of the elementar}' work appeared. 
But one plan creating the necessity for another, he soon 
found himself immersed in the conception of a great 
philosophical school, in which not only children but also 
teachers were to be trained for the application of his 
new system to the appalling wants of the people. 
Every family became possessor of the elementary book, 
and all eyes were turned toward the Philanthropium 
in Dessau. Compared with Basedow's wishes, this 
was but a fragment of an institution. But upon its 
existence depended the solution of his lauded prob- 
lems. 

Just at this time Germany was stirred by the 
reading of Rousseau's works on popular education. 
Neither in Switzerland nor France had they effected 
the purpose for which they were written, but among 
the Germans their success was complete. Many per- 
sons, earnestly favoring Rousseau's doctrine of freedom 
from all conventional restraints in families, desired even 
his Idyls of Life to be introduced into the schools. 
Basedow and Rousseau thought in harmony ; recom- 
mended that nature, not discipline, should be our guide 
in education ; and that only those stories should be 
taught, of the utility of which the children are them- 
selves conscious. Subscriptions came in profusely, and 
the PTiilanthropium in Dessau commenced its existence. 
It was opened without pupils on the twenty-seventh of 
December, 1774, and in the following year it was at- 
tended by only fifteen. It threatened to decline, but 
rallied again ; and in 1776 a great public examination 
was held. Then Basedow retired from its curatorship ; 



CAMPE AND SALZMANX. 



187 



but, I'eturning once more, his institution suffered under 
his care, and finally met with total extinction. The 
great bubble of his plans burst. People awoke to their 
mistake, and many of his dupes began to confess that, 
after all, the old system of education was the best that 
had been devised. 

But there were men who had lio:hted their torches 
at Basedow's flame. Some who had been temporary in- 
mates of his PJiilantlir opium went to work with great 
perseverance to write juvenile books. Though the in- 
stitution had tumbled to ruin, and public notice began 
to be turned from it, the excitement of the popular 
mind on the training of youth had been so intense that 
the subject could not soon cease to receive attention. 
For this reason, the writers of books for children found 
a large circle to read them, and become impressed by 
them. Herder had called attention to the subject of 
education in some of his most eloquent periods. He 
contended zealously for the development of the young 
mind. His own words were, " that it should be the 
chief aim of the teacher to imbue the child with liv- 
ing ideas of everything that he sees, says, or enjoys, 
in order to give him a proper position in his world, and 
continue the enjoyment of it through every day of his 
life." Jean Paul, in his Levana^ or the Doctrine of 
Education^ called attention to the necessity of the per- 
sonal training of children by their parents in opposition 
to the old stiff method which, instead of quickening, only 
stupefied the intellect. Campe and Salzmann had 
been students in Basedow's Philanthropiuyn^ and sub- 
sequently each of them commenced a similar institution, 
but of more humble pretensions. Yet it was not so 
much as practical educators as by their writings, that they 
were instrumental in effecting a powerful impression 



188 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



upon the young mind of Germany. Campe s CMldretC^ 
ZnJyimry had a fascinating influence upon children. It 
encouraged their literary taste to the exclusion of re- 
ligious development. The author advocated morality, 
but only that which is taught by the common dictates 
of nature. He stoutly rejected the old Catechism of 
Luther as unfit to be drilled into a youthful mind, and, 
unhappily, he found many sympathizers. His Robinson 
the Younger was to the Germans what Robinson Qru- 
soe was, and still is, to the English-speaking world, and 
from the time that the children read its wonderful 
stories they looked with disgust upon the less exciting 
histories of the Bible. From 1775 to 1785 it captivated 
every boy and girl who could collect groschen enough 
to buy a copy. When they had ceased reading it they 
were filled with the idea that they were naturally per- 
fect. 

Pestalozzi l)elongs rather to the nineteenth than 
to the eighteenth century, but he stands highest in the 
catalogue of the educational reformers who arose dur- 
ing the meridian strength of Rationalism. He was 
a Swiss by birth. In 1798 he went to Stanz and la- 
bored for the amelioration of the orphan children whose 
parents had fallen in the French wars.-^ His idea was, 
to make the school an educating family, into which the 
ease and pleasure of home should be introduced. He, 
too, believed in man's natural goodness, and held that 
true education is not so much the infusion of what is 
foreign to, as the educing of what is native in the child. 
But he warmly encouraged youthful acquaintance with 
the Bible, and said that the history of Christ is an in- 
dispensable ingredient in the education of every young 
mind. But while these few men, both by their active 

* Kahnis : German Protestantism, p. 216. 



SKEFIICISM m THE SCHOOLS. 



189 



life and facile pen, contributed their share to the im- 
provement of the youth of Germany, there was a large 
class of writers for the young, whose productions be- 
came as plentiful as autumn leaves. Some were sen- 
timental, having imbibed their spirit from Siegwart^ 
La Nouvelle Helolse^ and similar works. Young men 
and women became dreamers, and children of every 
social condition were converted into premature thinkers 
on love, romance, and suicide. Whoever could wield 
a pen thought himself fit to write a book for children. 
There has never been a period in the whole current of 
history when the youthful mind was more thorough- 
ly and suddenly revolutionized. The result was very 
disastrous. Education, in its true import, was no longer 
pursued, and the books most read were of such nature 
as to destroy all fondness for the study of the Bible, all 
careful preparation for meeting the great duties of 
coming maturity, and every impression of man's incapa- 
eitv for the achievement of his own salvation. 

The teachers in the common institutions of learning 
havins: now become imbued with serious doubts con- 
cerning the divine authority of the Scriptures, their 
pupils suffered keenly from the same blight. In 
many schools and gymnasia miracles were treated with 
contempt. Epitomes of the Scriptures on a philosoph- 
ical plan were introduced. Ammon, in one of his 

I works, tells the young people that the books of the Old 
Testament have no divine worth or character for us, ex- 

. cept so far as they agree with the spirit of the gospel. 
A.S to the New Testament, much must be figui-atively un- 
derstood, since many things have no immediate relation 
to our times. Christ is a mere man. Dinter was a vo- 

1 luminous writer on theological subjects, and in his 

i books tells children of imperfect notions of former 

14 



190 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



times as to God, angels, and miracles. He gives teach- 
ers directions how to conduct themselves cleverly in 
such matters, and afterwards, in agreement with the 
principles he recommends, he lays down plans of cate- 
chizing. For example, thei*e are to be two ways of cat- 
echizing about Jonah ; one before an audience not suffi- 
ciently enlightened, and w^here all remains in its old 
state ; another for places which have more light. In 
the prophecies concerning the Messiah a double expla- 
nation is given for the same reason. One is the old or- 
thodox way, the other a more probable neological plan. 
A clever teacher is to choose for himself; a dull one 
may ask the parish clergyman how far he may go. 

As a fair specimen of the kind of l)il)lical instruc- 
tion then imparted to the children of Germany, we 
may adduce the example of Becker's Universal Histo- 
ry for the Young. A second edition was issued in 
Berlin in 1806. Speaking of the person and char- 
acter of Christ, the author says, " Jesus probably got 
the first notion of his undertaking from being a friend 
of John, and going often to his father's, who was a 
priest ; and from the Gospel it appears that the sight of 
feasts and of the crowd of worshipers had a great ef- 
fect upon him. It is doubtful whether Jesus and John 
were sent into Egypt for their education, or were taught 
by the Essenes, and then sent into Palestine as am- 
bassadors of that sect, with secret support and accord- 
ing to arranged plan. . . . The indications of the 
Messiah in the Old Testament had produced great effect 
on Jesns and John who were both hot-heads, such as 
destiny raises for some great purpose. We are in 
danger, therefore, of judging them unjustly, especially 
from the great mixture of high and low, clear and ob- 
scure in them." 



Becker's view of christ. 



191 



Becker had the modesty to say that he would not 
undertake to fix the character of Jesus, but merely col- 
lect the fragments of it from his wretclied biographers. 
The friends had great mutual esteem, but John saw in 
Jesus a higher spirit than his own. Both had the 
same hatred of the priests, their pride and hypocrisy ; 
both thought the Mosaic law no longer fit for the time, 
and that the notion of a national God was the source of 
all the evil in Judea. After long meditation they de- 
cided that Jesus must be the Messiah ; and John found 
the part of a precursor fixed for himself. Christ, partly 
from his power of attraction, and partly from the hope 
of future power, made his disciples depend blindly on 
him. It was only with great caution that he could un- 
dertake his great work of destroying the priests. The 
people were divided into sects ; and the characteristics 
of his plan were, his choice of the lowest people, and 
his withdrawing himself frequently from public view, 
that the priests might not nip his plan in the bud. As 
all the prophets had worked miracles, and many were 
expected from the Messiah, he too was obliged, accord- 
ing to Becker, to undertake them or renounce his hopes. 
No doubt he performed miracles ; for the power of the 
mind on the body is such that we need not doubt his 
curing the melancholy and the nervous. As to the mi- 
raculous meals, raising the dead, curing the blind and 
deaf, these things must be attributed to the calculation 
of his historians ; and we need not hesitate to do so 
after observing such tangible fabrications as Christ's 
walking on the sea, his blasting the fig tree, devils driven 
into the swine, and virtue going out of himself. In the 
story of Lazarus we cannot help suspecting some secret 
concert. Christ did perform some uncontested miracles, 
however, and there was in his manner that inexpressible 



192 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



something which makes greatness irresistible. The 
mystic obscurity thrown over his future kingdom, the 
many parables he used, and his assured manner of 
speaking of future things, begot reverence. The pru- 
dence of his judgment and the strictness of his life are 
praiseworthy. He could pursue the destruction of old 
usages but very slowly ; first he allowed the neglect of 
the Sabbath, and at last made open war with the 
};riests, ''on rclioin he launched all the thunder of a 
Ciceronian eloquence^ 

"John's death," continues this model writer for 
youth, " made Christ very timid. He got away into 
the desert and ordered his followers not to call him 
Messiah in public. In his last journey to Jerusalem, 
the multitude protected him by day, and he escaped by 
night. His answers, made to several questions at this 
time, for example, John viii. 3, are still admired. He had 
always suspected Judas ; and as he had a presentiment 
that he would come to a bad end, he became very 
uneasy, and yet was able to exhort his disciples. He 
did not really die on the cross. Whenever recognized 
by his disciples afterwards, he went away directly, and 
came back unexpectedly and for a short time. At last 
he disappeared quickly, and let himself be seen no 
more. This end, like that of Lycurgus, produced many 
followers. By degrees all the tales of the crucifixion 
were extended and a Christian mythology erected."^ 

Becker was not more extreme in his inculcation of 
doctrine than many others. Even Gesenius, in the 
preface to his Hebrew Reading Boo\ tells the students 
of the Bible that Gen. i. 2, 3, contains the description 
of the origin of the earth by a sage of antiquity; 
that the narrator has a very imperfect knowedge of na- 

* Rose, State of Protestantism in Germany^ pp. 178-181. 



ALTEEATION OF THE HYMNS. 



193 



ture, though his description is sublime; that he can 
hardly be the first inventor of the description, as the 
principal outlines of it and even the six works of cre- 
ation are to be found in other religions of the East ; and 
that probably he only accommodates the general tradi- 
tion of the East to the national opinions of the He- 
brews, — a remark which applies especially to his ascrib- 
ing a mystic origin to the Sabbath, a festival peculiar 
to the Jews. 

Such was the kind of theology in which the German 
youth were trained during a period extending through 
the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of 
the nineteenth centuries. It is no matter of astonish- 
ment, then, that when those children became adults 
they were rigid Eationalists from the mere force of 
training. 

We now come to one of the most inexcusable deeds 
with which Rationalism stands charged. We refer to 
the general destruction or alteration of the time-honored 
German hymns. 

Both the great branches of the Protestant church had 
always highly piized their ricli hymns, of whicli there 
were eighty thousand in existence. Some of the finest 
lyrics of any tongue were among the number. The 
sacred songs now used in our American churches are 
not solely of English origin, or of our own production ; 
but many of the sweetest of them are free versions 
from the German hymnists. The Rationalists, not 
being content with their present laurels, began in great 
earnestness to despoil the hymn-books of the Protestant 
church of everything savoring of inspiration or of any 
of the \ital doctrines already rejected. They looked 
upon those songs of devotion as composed during the 
iron age of truth, and therefore unfit to be sung by the 



194 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



congregations whose lot had been cast in the golden 
period. Should these verses continue to he sung by 
the chui'ch, they would remain a strong tie holding 
the masses to the pitiable days of effete orthodoxy. 
The Rationalists reasoned correctly, for, in Germany, 
music is a power which has at times defied the au- 
thority of popes and kings. It was, therefore, with a 
sort of savage satisfaction that these destroyers of ti'uth 
began the work of denuding those earnest and evan- 
gelical hymns of all their vigor and nationality for the 
purpose of placing in their stead cold and heartless 
moral verses. 

Klopstock commenced the work of alteration, though 
with a good intention, by remodeling twenty-nine old 
church hymns. Cramer and Schlegel followed in hia 
steps. Soon the devout and animating songs of Gellert, 
Bach, and their brother minstrels were despoiled of 
the spirit that had ever made them dear to the popu- 
lar heart and familiar to the common ear. By and by, 
everybody who could make a tolerable rhyme seized 
some of the master-pieces of hymnology, and set them 
up on stiff philosophical stilts. New hymn books were 
introduced into many of the churches, and the people 
sang Rationalism. General superintendents, consistorial 
counselors, and court preachers, rivaled each other in 
preparing a new volume of religious songs for the terri- 
tory under their charge. Individual towns and churches 
had their own selections. Some portions of Germany, 
especially Wiirtemberg, refused awhile to give up the 
old hynms, and certain writers of the sterling character 
of the poet Schubert raised a loud and indignant voice 
against the wretched vandalism. But they could ac- 
complish nothing, and the old hymns suffered that fear- 
ful mortality which the Rationalists had by this time 



PERVERSION OF SACRED MUSIC. 



195 



become so able to inflict on almost everything of value. 
It is a lamentable scene to see those reckless doubters 
sit down with scalpel in hand to dissect as pure and in- 
spiring hymns as are to be found in the devotional 
literature of any nation. For a good sacred song is 
only complete just as its author finishes it. If an au- 
thorized hymn committee attempt to alter it, they fill 
it at once with icicles. They can no more improve it 
by emendations than they can improve a rose by the 
use of a penknife. Each clipping or puncture destroys 
some natural charm. 

But the music accompanying the hymns was doomed 
to a like fate. The old chorals, which had been linger, 
ing in those renowned gothic temples ever since the 
days of Luther, were so altered as to stand upon the 
same footing with the hymns themselves. All senti- 
ment was extracted, as quite out of place, and sublimity 
was made to give way to a more temperate and stoical 
standard. In due time the Rationalists effected their pur- 
pose. Secular music was introduced into the sanc- 
tuary ; an operatic overture generally welcomed the 
people into church, and a march or a waltz dismissed 
them. Sacred music was no longer cultivated as an ele- 
ment of devotion. The oratorios and cantata of the 
theatre and beer-garden were the Sabbath accompani- 
ments of the sermon. The masses consequently began 
to sing less ; and the period of coldest skepticism in 
Germany, like similar conditions in other lands, was the 
season when the congregations, the common people, and 
the children sang least and most drowsily. 

We now behold Protestant Germany in the full 
possession of a shrewd, powerful, and aggressive system 
of infidelity. The most thorough student of church his- 
toiy must conclude that no other kind of skepti- 



196 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



cism has received more aid from external sources. 
Everything that appeared on the surface of the times 
contributed its mite toward the spiritual petrification 
of the masses. Hamann, Oetinger, Reinhard, Lavater, 
and Storr were insufficient for the great task of coun- 
teraction, while Rationalism could count its strons' 
men by the score and hundred. Literatm-e, philosophy, 
history, education, and sacred music were so influenced 
by increasing indifference and douljt that when the 
people awoke to their condition they found themselves 
in a strange latitude and on a dangerous coast. But 
they thought themselves safe. They could not see how 
each new feature in politics, literature, and theology 
was affecting them in a remarkable manner ; and how 
so many influences from opposite quarters could con 
tribute to the same tenible result, — the total overthro\^ 
of evangelical faith. 



CHAPTER YIII. 



DOCTRINES OF RATIONALISM IN THE DAY OF ITS 
STRENGTH. 

The church now presented a most deplorable 
aspect. Philosophy had come, with its high-sounding 
terminology, and invaded the hallowed precincts of 
scriptural truth. Literature, with its captivating notes, 
had well-nigh destroyed what was left of the old Pie- 
tistic fervor. The songs of the church were no longer 
images of beauty, but ghastly, repulsive skeletons. The 
professor's chair was but little better than a heathen 
tripod. The pulpit became the rostrum where the 
shepherdless masses were entertained with vague essays 
on such general terms as righteousness, human dignity, 
light, progress, truth, and right. The peasantry re- 
ceived frequent and labored instructions on the raising 
of cattle, bees, and fruit. The poets of the day were 
publicly recited in the temples where the Reformers 
had preached. Wieland, Herder, Schiller, and Goethe 
became more familiar to the popular congregations than 
Moses, David, Paul, or even Christ. By this time we 
might reasonably expect the harvest from Semler's fa- 
vorite theories. There was no school as yet by which 
he worked upon the public mind, but the greater portion 
of theologians caught up scrap-thoughts from his opin- 
ions and now dealt them out in magnified proportions 



198 



HISTOEY OF KATIONALISM. 



to the masses who, like their Athenian predecessors, 
were ever anxious to learn what was new. That so 
many influences as we have seen in force should com- 
pletely subdue orthodoxy is not wonderful, when we 
consider first the minds that originated them, and 
then the dull and frigid condition of the church. 

But, as the fruit of these influences, there was no 
common system of theology adopted by the Rationalists. 
The reason is obvious. Rationalism was not an organ- 
ism, and therefore it could have no acknowledged creed. 
Its adherents were powerful and numerous scouting- 
parties, whose aim was to harass the flanks of the 
enemy, and who were at liberty, when occasion re- 
quired, to divide, subdivide, take any road, or attack at 
any point likely to contribute to the common victory. 
One writer came before the public, and threw doubt 
on some portions of the Scriptures. He was followed 
by another who, while conceding the orthodox view of 
those very passages, would discard other parts, even 
whole books, as plainly incredible. A third discussed 
the character and mission of Christ, and imputed a cer- 
tain class of motives to him. A fourth attributed to 
him totally different, if not contradictory, impulses. 
There is no one book, therefore, in which we find an 
undisputed Rationalistic system, for the work that may 
represent one circle will give but a meagre and false 
view of another. Besides, what the most of the Ra- 
tionalists might agree upon at one stage of the develop- 
ment of their skepticism, would be rejected by others, 
living a few years after them. The only means, there- 
fore, by which we are enabled to arrive at some under- 
standing concerning their opinions is to fix upon the 
time of their meridian strength, and then to hear what 
their representative men of that period say of the truths 
of revelation. 



EELIGION EXISTENCE OF GOD. 



199 



Now it cannot be doubted that Rationalism was most 
powerful after the decided impression made upon theol- 
ogy by the philosophical direction commenced by Kant, 
and by that of literature inaugurated by Lessing and 
followed by the Weimar poets. We are consequently 
under the necessity of hearing the statements of ac- 
knowledged Rationalists who flourished during this 
time, and, out of the chaos, arrive at the most probable 
and general views entertained by the people. 

We shall see that the scene of spiritual desolation 
was repulsive enough to make every servant of Christ 
wish, with Wordsworth, — 

" I'd rather be 
A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn ; 
So might I standing on this pleasant lea 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn — 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 

Religioi^. All religion was held by the Rationalists 
to be mere morality. As to any such thing as conver- 
sion, they were agreed that it could be only a work of 
the imagination. All the regeneration at which we 
may reasonably expect to arrive is an inclination to 
obey the dictates of reason. He who follows the teach- 
mgs of his own intellect cannot go astray, for this is 
the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world. The Scriptures give a high coloring to religion, 
and represent it as necessary ; but those writings are 
not as reliable as the innate revelation which every son 
of Reason enjoys. 

Existence of God. With this view of religion in 
general, all the other vital doctrines of Christianity 
suffered an equal depreciation. The existence of Grod 
is conceded, but the proof is impossible. His persou- 



200 



HISTOEi' OF RATIOI^ALISM. 



ality cannot T^e affirmed ; it is confounded with the sou] 
of the world. Of course, the doctrine of the Trinity 
cannot be accepted ; for reason sheds no light suffi- 
ciently clear to establish it. A high dignitary of the 
church, Cannabich, wrote a book in positive denial of 
the Tnnity, original sin, justification, satisfaction of 
Christ, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. As for the 
Trinity, the early Christians had no such tenet, and it 
was never concocted until after the lapse of several 
centuries of the Christian era. Both philosophy and 
nature are as capable of establishing the evidence of 
God's existence as the Scriptures themselves. The idea 
we have of God is due to prejudice and education. 
The mass of the Eationalists said, with Lichtenberg, 
that instead of God making man after his image, man 
had made God after his human image. 

DocTRENTE OF INSPIRATION. The Rationalists were 
fond of reasoning by analogy, and they used that 
method of argument freely in their discussions on the 
inspiration of the Scriptures. God never pursues the 
plan of operating immediately upon nature. His laws 
are the mediate measures by which he communicates 
with man. Gravitation is an instrument he employs 
for the control of the material world. Thus, in some 
way, does God impress upon man's mind all that he 
wishes to reveal, without any necessity of direct inspira^ 
tion. The doctrine w^as, therefore, rejected because 
there was no need of it, and from this step it was easy 
to assume the position that there is no inspiration. 
This the Eationalists did assume. " Grant inspiration,'' 
Baid they, " and you bind us down to the belief that all 
the contents of the Scriptures are true. You force us 
to believe what our reason does not comprehend. The 
doctrine of inspiration opens the floodgate for the l>e- 



TOLLNER's view OE mSPIEATIOK. 



201 



lief of a mass of mythical stuff whicli we will no more 
grant to be historically tme than Niebuhr will admit 
the validity of the legends of early Rome." The poets 
of every land have enjoyed a sort of rhapsody when in 
theii' highest flights. This rhapsody or ecstasy is all 
that these idolaters of reason will concede. Doder- 
lein's views of inspiration were much more elevated 
than those held by many of his confreres / but he too 
speaks of poetical excitement, and draws a line of dis- 
tinction between the inspired and uninspired parts of 
Scripture. But Ammon represents this subject better 
than Doclerleiii. It was his opinion that the idea of a 
mediate divine instruction is applicable to all human 
knowledge. He rejects the notion peculiar to revelation. 
Inspii'ation cannot for a moment be accepted as an im- 
mediate divine impression, because it would compromise 
the supremacy of reason, and destroy man's intellectual 
and moral liberty. The diversity of style perceptible 
in the writers of the Scriptures is a proof that they 
were not influenced by immediate inspiration. "These 
writers themselves," say the Rationalists, "never claimed 
such extraordinary functions as those with which or- 
thodox believers would now clothe them." 

Tollner, a theological professor in Frankfort-on-the- 
Oder, wrote very fully on inspiration, and his work 
was held in great repute by many of the Rationalists 
who were inclined to supernaturalism. He held that 
the will, the matter, the words, and the order of both 
the matter and the words, might be objects of inspira- 
tion. But there are several degrees of iuspiration. 
Some books were written without inspiration of any 
kind, and were only confirmed by God. In the Old 
Testament, Moses might have been directed to a choice 
of subjects, and his memory might have been strength- 



202 



HISTOEY OF R AXIOMS' ALISM. 



ened. So of the Psalms and Prophecies. There is no 
such thing as inspiration of the historical books. It 
cannot be determined what degree was employed in the 
New Testament. In the Acts there was nothing more 
than natm-al inspiration. Luke and Mark were ap- 
proved by the apostles, hence their writings may be 
received. Morus held that inspiration was sometimes 
only the inducing to write ; sometimes an admonition 
to do so ; sometimes revelation ; and sometimes only a 
guarding from error.'^ Granting the Rationalistic de- 
nial of inspiration, we have no solid ground for any 
portion of the Bible. We find, therefore, that after this 
view had become prevalent the jDopular mind attached 
no importance to God's ]'evealed will. Interpolations 
were imagined at every point of difficulty. Schrockh 
gives a sketch of the deplorable state of opinion on in- 
spiration, when he says, " Inspiration was given up — 
interpolations in Scripture were believed to exist. In 
the oldest and partly in more recent history, instead of 
historical facts these writers saw only allegories, myth, 
philosophical principles, and national history. Where 
appearances of God and the angels, or their immediate 
agency, are related, iiothing was seen but Jewish images 
or dreams. The explanation of all biblical books was 
pursued on new principles. The Song of Solomon w^as 
not mystical. The Revelations contained no j)rophecy 
of the fortunes of the church." 

Bitter indeed must have been the emotions of the 
devout Christian on seeing the departure of inspiration 
from the opinions of the theological leaders of that day. 
Infinitely more exquisite must have been his pain than 
was that of the poet, who, sighing for the haunted and 
credulous days of olden time, said : 

^Rose, State of Protestantism in Germany. Xotes on Ch. iv. 



CREDIBILITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



208 



" The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 

The fair humanities of old religions, 

The power, the beauty, and the majesty. 

That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain, 

Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring. 

Or chasms and watery depths : all these have vanished." 

Ckedibility of THE ScRiPTURES. Schenkel affirms 
that Rationalism consists in giving up all the historical 
characteristics of Christianity and of Christian truths, 
and in the reduction of religion to the universal con- 
clusions of reason and morality. The accuracy of this 
definition is very perceptible when we consider the 
wantonness of the assaults of the Rationalists upon the 
Scriptures as the canon of faith and practice. This 
period was marked by desperate attempts to overthrow 
the early history of all countries, and to convict his- 
torians of stating as fact what was only vague tradition. 
As the Bible was alleged by the supernaturalists to be 
the oldest historic record, great pains were taken to dis- 
sipate the mist from its accounts of supposed verities. 
The writers of the Scriptures, the fiiends of Rationalism 
held, were only men like ourselves. They had our 
prejudices and as great infirmities as we have. They 
were as subject to deception and trickery, and as full 
of political and sectarian rancor as partisans in these 
times. All through the Old Testament we find traces 
of biased judgment, Jewish national pride, sectional 
enmity, sectarian superstition, and rabbinical ignorance. 
It is but little better in the New Testament, for the 
disciples of Christ and the writers of the gospels were 
as susceptible of error and bigotry as their predecessors,^ 

The writers of the Scriptures were utterly destitute 
of any such great designs as the orthodox attribute to 



* Von Ammon : Biblische Theologie, 



204 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



them. They had no intention of writing for posterity, 
and were the mere chroniclers of what they had heard 
from others and seen for themselves. The Bible is, like 
the essays of Seneca, an excellent book for elevating 
the people by its moral tone. As a revelation of God's 
will it only takes its place beside others which God 
had previously made, and has been making in a nat- 
ural way, ever since.^ All ages and nations have their 
communications of knowledge, and the setting forth 
of any truth in a clearer light is a revelation.^ There 
are many steps necessary for the education of the race 
and for its intellectual and moral development. The 
Scriptures are a veiy good aid to such a great consum- 
mation.^ But they are full of errors, which we must 
leave for the supremacy of pure Reason to dissipate 
forever.* 

We cannot forbear to give Wegscheider s testimony 
on the scanty measure of scriptural credibility and au- 
thority in his own words. " But whatever narrations," 
he says, " especially accommodated to a certain age and 
relating miracles and mysteries, are united with the 
history and subject-matter of revelation of this kind, 
these ought to be referred to the natural sources and 
true nature of human knowledge. By how much the 
more clearly the author of the Christian religion, not 
without the help of Deity, exhibited to men the ideas 
of reason imbued with true religion, so as to represent, 
as it were, a reflection of the divine reason, or the divine 
spirit, by so much the more diligently ought man to strive 
to approach as nearly as possible to form that archetype 
in the mind, and to study to imitate it in life and man- 

^ Daub. * Herder. Lessing : Menschengeschlecht. Rosenmiiller : 

Stufenfolge der GottUchen Offeribarungen. * Wegscheider : Institutior^es 
Dogmatic(B. 



WEGSCHEIDEK ON INSPIRATION. 



205 



ners to the utmost of Ms ability. Behold here the in- 
timate and eternal union and agreement of Christianity 
with Rationalism. . . . The various modes of su- 
pernatural revelation mentioned in many places of the 
sacred books are to be referred altogether to the no- 
tions and mythical narrations of every civilized people ; 
and this following the suggestion of the Holy Scripture 
itself, and therefore to be attributed, as any events in the 
nature of things, to the laws of nature known to us. 
As to theophanies, the sight of the infinite Deity is ex- 
pressly denied: John i. 18 — 1 John iv. 12 — 1 Tim. vi. 
16. Angelophanies, which the Jews of a later date 
substituted for the appearances of God himself, like the 
narrations of the appearances of demons found amongst 
many nations, are plainly destitute of certain historic 
proofs ; and the names, species, and commissions attrib- 
uted to angels in the sacred books, plainly betray their 
Jewish origin. The business transacted by angels on 
earth is little worthy of such ministers. . . . The 
persuasion concerning the truth of that supernatural 
revelation, which rests on the testimony of the sacred 
volume of the Old and New Testaments, like every 
opinion of the kind, labors under what is commonly 
called a petitio princi'piir 

The Bible is, in fact, of no more authority and en- 
titled to no further credence than any other book. It 
is not worth more, as an historical record, than an old 
chi'onicle of Indian, Greek, or Roman legends.^ The 
evangelists did not get their accounts of the doings of 
Christ from observation, but from a primitive document 
written in the Aramaic language. The gospels were 
not intentional deceptions ; but that they are as well 
the work of error as of wisdom, no candid interpreter 

^ Eichliom : Einleitung. 



206 



mSTOEY OF EAUONALISM. 



can deny. The life of Christ which they contain is but 
an innocent supplement to the Metamorplwses of Ovid.' 
Tittmann went so far as to affirm that the Scripture 
writers were so ignorant that they could not represent 
things as they really happened. Of course he excludes 
their capacity for inspiration. 

Doctrine of the Fall of Man. While some Ra- 
tionalistic writers conceded that Moses was the author 
of the whole or parts of the Pentateuch, his version of 
the origin of sin was universally rejected. The tempta- 
tion by the serpent was, with them, one of the most im- 
probable myths ever drawn up from the earliest tradi- 
tions of nations. Whether Moses wrote much or little 
of the books attributed to him, his sources of knowl- 
edge were monuments and tales which he saw and 
heard about him. It is likely that he derived his idea 
of the fall of man from some hieroglyphic representation 
which he happened somewhere to see. As for the en. 
trance of the serpent into Paradise, it is just as improb- 
able as the rabbinical notion that the serpent of Eden 
had many feet. In the opinion of some, the whole nar- 
rative is only an allegory, or " a poetical description of 
the transition of man from a more brutish creature into 
humanity, from the baby-wagon of instinct into the 
government of reason, from the guardianship of natui'e 
into the condition of freedom," ^ Kindred to this theory 
is Ammon's ; that at first man obeyed instinct only, and 
that his desire to eat the forbidden fruit was the long- 
ing of his mind to understand truth. But the great 
injury which these men thought they had visited on 
this doctrine was their assumption that man had not 
fallen, and that, instead of being worse than he once 
was, he is every year growing purer and holier than at 

' Poulus : Kritische Commmtar uber das Neue Testament. ^ Kant. 



MIRACLES. 



207 



any previous stage of his history. This was flattering 
to their inflated pride, and their wish became father to 
their creed. With Eichhorn, the nan^ative of the fall 
was only a description of Adam's thoughts. 

Miracles. It was no surprise to the wise disciples 
of Keason that there should be found numerous records 
of miracles in the Bible. It was just what might be 
expected from such writers in that gray morning of an- 
tiquity. The first chroniclers seized upon tradition ; 
aod their successors, seeing how well their fathers had 
succeeded, merely imitated them by catching up new 
ones, or enlarging upon the old account. By a sort of 
infection, therefore, we find what purports to be a reve- 
lation. Whatever harmony there is, was the result of 
an aim which was not lost sight of for a moment, Na- 
ture was the first teacher; and, though she was compe- 
tent, we have been poor disciples. She is instructing us 
all the time, though we have listened less to her than to 
the other auditors who sit about us. Lichtenberg says 
in poetical language, that " When man considers Nature 
the teacher, and poor men the pupils, we listen to a lec- 
ture and we have the principles and the knowledge to 
understand it. But we listen far more to the applause 
of oui' fellow-students than to the discourse of the 
teacher. We interlard the lecture by speeches to the 
one who sits next us ; we supply what has been poorly 
heard by us; and enlarge it by our own mistakes of or- 
thography and sentiment." 

No branch of scriptural faith attracted more of the 
wrath and irony of the Rationalists than miracles. 
They saw how important their service was to the au- 
thority of the Bible, and therefore bent all their ener- 
gies for their overthrow. They denied their possibility 
in the strongest terms, averring that they degrade the 



208 



HISTOKY OF EATIONALISM. 



character of God, and violate that noble nature of the 
human mind, which is necessarily bound to the most 
certain laws of experience, and can discern no positive 
marks of supernatural agency.^ The miracles of the 
New Testament receive no better treatment than those 
of the Old. In every case they have no foundation in 
history. Various reasons are assigned for their presence 
in the Bible ; in some cases they are only legends of 
mythologic days; in others, the pure fancy of the 
writer ; and in others, hyperbolical descriptions of natu- 
ral occurrences. Thus, while there was a diversity of 
opinion concerning the narratives, there was perfect 
union as to the purely natural character of the events. 

We may ^particularize, in order to present more 
clearly the Rationalistic method of interpreting mira- 
cles. When Korah, Dathan and Abiram, with their fel- 
low-unfortunates, were swallowed up, they only suf- 
fered what many others hav^e done since, — destruction 
by a natural earthquake. This was the opinion of 
Michaelis. Others, more ingenious, thought that Moses 
had taken care to undermine privately the whole 
of the ground on which the tents of the sinners 
were ; and, therefore, it was not surprising, either that 
they fell into the cavity, or that Moses should know 
this would be their fate. Eichhorn held that the thi*ee 
offenders, with their property, were burned by the 
order of Moses. Dinter explained Jacob's struggle 
with an angel by relating a recent dream. His broth- 
er having lately died, Dinter dreamed soon after 
that a man, with a little peep-show, presented to his 
view all sorts of pictures, and at length showed him 
his dead brother. The vision said, "To show you 
that I am really your brother, I will print a blue 

^ Wegscheider : Institutiones Dogmatics. 



PATJLUS ON THE mRACLES OF CHKIST. 209 

mark on your finger." The dreamer awoke and 
found not a blue mark but a pain which lasted 
some days. This profound exegete then asks, " Could 
not something similar have happened in Jacob's case ? 
Even the less lively occidentalist sometimes relates as 
real what only happened in his mind. Why should 
we be surprised at a similar occurrence in the warmer 
fancy of the Eastern man ? " 

But of all the critics of miracles we must give the 
palm to Paulus. Let us hear how he accounts for 
the tribute-money in the mouth of the fish. " What 
sort of a miracle," he asks, is that we find here ? I 
will not say a miracle of about sixteen or twenty 
groschen, for the greatness of the value does not make 
the greatness of the miracle. But it may be observed, 
that, as Jesus generally received support from many 
persons, in the same way as the Rabbis frequently 
lived from such donations ; as so many pious women 
provided for the wants of Jesus ; and as the claim did 
not occur at any remote place, but at Capernaum, 
where Christ had friends ; a miracle for about a thaler 
would certainly have been superfluous. But it would 
not only have been superfluous and paltry, — it would 
have taught this principle ; that Peter, even when he 
could have remedied his necessities easily in other ways, 
might and ought to reckon on a miraculous interference 
of the Deity, — a notion which would entirely contradict 
the fundamental principle of Jesus, or the interference 
of the Deity. There is nothing of a miraculous ap- 
pearance in this narrative, nor was there to Peter him- 
self. Had there been, the fiery Peter would not have 
been cold-blooded at such a miracle, but would have ex- 
pressed himself as in Luke v. 8. There is nothing more 
meant here than that Christ designed to give a moral 



210 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



lesson ; namely, that we should not give offence to our 
brethren, if we can avoid it by trifling circumstances. 
Hence, Christ said to him in substance, * Though there 
is no real occasion for us to pay the tribute, yet as we 
may be reckoned enemies of the temple, and may not 
be attended to when we wish to teach what is good, 
why should not you, who ai-e a fisherman, and can easily 
do it, go and get enough to pay the demand ? Go then 
to the sea, cast your hook and take up the first and best 
fish. Peter must, therefore, have caught either so many 
fish as would be worth a stater at Capernaum, or one large 
and fine enough to have been valued at that sum. The 
opening of the fish's mouth might have different objects, 
which must be fixed by the context. Certainly, if it 
hang long, it will be less salable. Therefore the 
sooner it is taken to market, the more probable will be 
a good price for it." 

Paulus and Ammon coincide in the following inter- 
pretation of one of the miracles of the loaves and 
fishes. There were always large caravans traveling 
near the time of the feasts, and they carried a plenty of 
meat and drinks on camels and in baskets. Now it is 
not according to Eastern hospitality to see your friends 
near you when you are eating, without asking them 
to join you. All that Jesus meant by saying they 
were without food was, that they had not a regular 
meal ; and that therefore he collected them, arranged 
them in parties, and set those who had food the example 
of giving to those who had none, by doing so himself 
with the small portion which he had. As long as eating 
was going on, Christ made the twelve go about with 
their baskets and give what they had to all who wished 
it The baskets were not entirely emptied, nor was any 
one left hungry ; otherwise the needy would have ap- 



MIRACLES AND PROPHECY. 



211 



plied to the stock of the Apostles. Jesus, pleased to 
have done so much with so little, desired them to collect 
what there was in the different baskets into one. 

Our wise critic, the daring Paulus, finds as little 
diiBculty in explaining away the miracle of Christ walk- 
ing on the sea. When Christ saw that the wind was 
contrary, he did not wish to sustain the inconvenience of 
such a voyage ; but walked along the shore and resolved 
to pass the disciples, as the wind was against them. From 
the state of the weather they coasted slowly along, 
and when they saw him walking on the land they were 
frightened. On their calling out, Christ desired Peter, 
who was a good swimmer, to swim to the shore and as- 
certain that it was he. Peter ran around to the proper 
side of the ship and jumped into the sea. When he 
was frightened by the violence of the waves, Christ 
who was standing on the shore, put out his hand and 
caught him. The boat put to land and they both got in ! 

Such was the common method of explaining miracles. 
The Rationalists were so opposed to the idea of the super- 
natural, that each was accounted for in some other than 
the scriptural way. Many volumes were written on 
this subject alone, until the people became thoroughly 
imbued with the opinion that the Scriptures are nothing 
more than a well-intended and exhaustive Jewish my- 
thology. It became a mark of superstition to credit a 
miraculous event, and the few who still adhered to this 
pillar of the Christian faith found themselves pitied by 
the learned and derided by their equals. 

Prophecy. The adventurous men who could deal 
thus with miracles would not be supposed to be more 
lenient to the prophecies of the Scriptures. We, there- 
fore, observe the same skeptical rejection of the proph- 
ets. We have not dwelt at length upon the particular 



212 



HISTORY OF RATIOJS^ALISM. 



books which received their thrusts, for this would be 
quite too lengthy a task for the present volume. It is 
probable, however, that there is not a book of Scrip- 
ture, or even a chapter, which these men would have 
i-emain just as we find it in the canon. " Something must 
bo done with it," they argued, " no matter what it is. 
It is older or later than we have been accustomed to 
think. It was, of course, written by some one else than 
the accredited author." 

A large share of these criticisms centered on the 
works of the prophets, for it was one of the most per- 
sistent efforts of Rationalism to destroy popular faith in 
them. Ammon discoursed boldly against them and at- 
tempted to convert every pi'ophetic expression into a 
natural remark. He held that Christ himself directly 
renounced the power to pi'ophesy, Mat. xxiv. 36 ; Acts 
i. 7; and that there are no prophecies of his in the New 
Testament. Prophecies are recorded in the Bible as 
uttered by men of doubtful character. Many of them 
are obscure, and were never fulfilled. Others were 
made after the events, and all were reckoned imperfect 
by the Apostles. These accusations apply to all the 
prophecies of the Old and New Testaments. The ar- 
gument for them needs whatever excuse it can find, in 
the delirium of the prophets who were transported out 
of their sobriety, in the double sense in which they are 
quoted in the New Testament, or in the remarkable va- 
riety of interpretation. In fact, there is a moral ob- 
jection to them, to say nothing of their historical charac- 
ter. They would favor fatalism, take away human free- 
dom, and be irreconcilable with the Divine perfection. 
What Christ said concerning the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem is not a prophecy, because not stated with sufficient 
clearness. Jesus followed the style of interpretation 



THE PROPHETS. 



213 



found in the Talmudic and Rabbinical writings, and 
transferred to himself many things in the Old Testa- 
ment, which really referred to future changes in the 
state of the Jews. He used the Jewish ideas of a 
Messiah to further his own notions of founding a spirit- 
ual kingdom. The prophecies in the Old Testament 
merely give a poetical dress to affairs occurring in the 
prophet's or the poet's life time.^ Even the prophets 
made but little if any claim to the great gift ascribed 
to them. They were good politicians who had made a 
study of their subject ; and, from the mere force of nat- 
ural shrewdness and long experience, could see coming 
events. Paulus argued at length against Christ's proph- 
ecy of his own resurrection. His first proof is that the 
apostles did not so understand him, as is clear from the 
women seeking to embalm him ; and from the apostles 
not believing at first the story of his resurrection. Then 
Christ had no notion of returning shortly. He would 
not have thought it necessary to cheer his disciples as he 
did before his death if he could have prophesied that 
in three days he should join them again. All the prom- 
ises of meeting again refer to his joining them in a fu- 
ture life. Wegsch eider adds that Christ, though he re- 
proaches his disciples with their want of faith, does not 
allude to their distrust of any prophecy of his ; and 
that the phrase three days is often used of what will 
soon happen. Scherer, a clergyman of Hesse-Darmstadt, 
represented the prophets of the Old Testament as 
so many Indian jugglers, Avho made use of the pre- 
tended inspiration of Moses and of the revelations of 
the prophets to deceive the people. He treated those 
who still have any regard for the prophecies of the New 
Testament as enthusiasts and simpletons ; called all the 

^Eichhorn: Die HehrdiscTien Propheten. 



214 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM, 



predictions respecting the person of the Messiah, non- 
sense ; accused the prophets of being cunaing deceivers; 
and said that the belief of those prophets has preserved 
incredulity on the earth. 

The Person of Christ. The historical method of 
interpretation was applied by the disciples of Reason 
to the Gospel narratives of the character and atonement 
of Christ. The various circumstances surrounding the 
writers, the prejudices probably actuating them, the cus- 
toms they witnessed, and their ignorance and consequent 
impressibility by a stronger mind, were all taken into 
the account. The Rationalists, therefore, place Christ 
before us as we would naturally expect him to appear 
after taking everything into consideration. They do 
not show him to us as he is, but as the nature of the case 
would lead us to expect him to be. There were many 
who charged him with unworthy motives and national 
prejudices. Reimarus accused him of rebellious, ambi- 
tious, and political views. "Afterward," says Staudlin, 
*'came out writings enough in Germany in which Christ 
was said to have performed his miracles by secret arts 
or by delusions. All proofs of the truth and divinity 
of his religion were taken away. He was exhibited 
either as a deceiver or self-deceiving enthusiast ; and 
every possible objection to Christian morality as well 
as to the form of Christian worship was violently 
urged. Among the writers of these works were even 
theologians and preachers ! What could be the conse- 
quence, except that they who still held somewhat to 
Christianity should set it forth as pure Rationalism, and 
that others should endeavor to extinguish it, and to in« 
troduce a pure religion of reason quite independent of 
Christianity and separated from it." 

An anonymous publication appeared in 1825, 



PERSON OF CHRIST. 



215 



entitled Vindicim SacrcB Novi Testamenti Scriptua- 
rum^ in which Christ was declared to have deceived 
himself! Thei-eupon the Christians were obliged to 
elevate their founder's mean condition by wonderful 
stories. The first myth is concerning John the 
Baptist. Then follow the wonderful stories of Christ's 
birth, the advent of the wise men, the baptism, 
temptation, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. 
There are doubts and difficulties connected with the 
resurrection, and, though the apostles constantly as- 
sert its truth, the probable story is that the follow- 
ers of Jesus, enraged at his death, gave it out that, 
being taken from the power of the wicked, he lived 
with God and enjoyed the reward of his virtue. 
They represented the life of their master to themselves 
and others in the most glowing colors, and so by de- 
grees said that he was still living, raised from the dead, 
and rewarded. Then all these thini^s were told and be- 
lieved, and it was not easy to contradict them or even 
examine their value. 

Paulus affirmed that Christ did not really die 
but suffered a fainting fit. Bahrdt conjectured that 
he retreated after his supposed death to some place 
known only to his disciples. According to Henke, 
Christ was a remarkable teacher, distinguished and 
instructed by God. Inspiration was what Cicero 
ascribes to the poets ; the doctrine of the Trinity came 
from, Platonism ; the name " Son of God is metaphori- 
cal, and describes not the nature but the qualities of 
Chiist ; and personality is ascribed to the Holy Ghost 
through a prosopopoeia not uncommon in the New Testa- 
ment. The chief service of Christ was his doctrine. 
As a Divine Messenger it was his business to bring for- 
ward new and pure religion adapted to the wants of all 



216 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



mankind, and to give an example of it. His death v^^as 
necessary to prove his confidence in his own doctrines, 
and to present an illustration of perfected virtue. 
Wegscheider took the position that Christ was one of 
those characters raised up by God at various periods of 
history to repress vice and encourage virtue. All no- j 
tions of his glorification, however, are groundless, and 
the atonement is a mere speculation of the orthodox. 

One of the most popular and direct of all the wri- 
ters on the opinions of the Rationalists was Rohr, the 
author of the Brief e hher den liationalismus. He 
dwells at length upon nearly all the opinions we 
have mentioned, but his portrait of Christ demands 
more than a passing notice. He assumes a position, not 
very lofty, it is true, but yet much more favorable than 
some of the authorities to which we have referred. 
Christ had a great mission, and he felt that a heavy 
burden was upon him. Still he was only a great ge- 
nius, the blossom of his age and generation, and unsur- 
passed in wisdom by any one before or after him. His 
origin, culture, deeds and experience, are yet veiled, 
and the accounts we have of him are so distorted by 
rhapsody that we cannot reach a clear conception of 
him. He had a rare acquaintance with mankind, and 
studied the Old Testament carefully. He possessed a 
large measure of tact, imagination, judgment, wisdom, 
and power. His wisdom was the product of unbiased 
reason, a sound heart, and freedom from scholastic preju- 
dices. He knew how to seize upon the best means for 
the attainment of his human purposes. He embraced in 
his plan a universal religion, and to this he made all 
things minister. All his doctrines were borrowed from 
the Old Testament ; and the most admirable can be 
found as far back as the time of Moses. He performed 



PEESON OF CHRIST. 



217 



no miracles ; but they seemed miracles to the eye-wit- 
nesses. He uttered no real prophecies, but his mind 
was so full of the future that some of his predictions 
came to pass because of the natural foresight possessed 
by him. His cures are all attributable to his skill as a 
physician, for every Jew of that day had some medical 
knowledge. His apostles propagated Christianity be- 
cause of the influence wrought upon them by their mas- 
ter. Fortunately for his fame, Paul published him far 
and wide. Had it not been for that apostle, Christianity 
would never have gone further than Palestine. There 
is nothing more remarkable in the spread of this re- 
ligion than in that of Mohammedanism, which has 
made such great inroads upon Arabia, Egypt, Northern 
Africa, and Spain. Rohr, however, reaches the climax 
of skeptical praise when he says of Christ that he was 
a Rationalist of pure, clear, sound reason ; free from 
prejudice, of ready perceptions, great love of truth, and 
warm sympathies, — an exalted picture of intellectual and 
moral greatness. Who would not bow before thee ? " 

The Rationalists made each act of Christ the sub- 
ject of extended remark. Whenever they came to a 
serious difficulty they boldly attempted its solution by 
a few dashes of their unscrupulous pen. We may 
take the temptation in the wilderness as an example. 
One writer says that Christ, after his baptism, went 
into the wilderness full of the conviction that he had 
been called to a great work. He was hungry ; and the 
thought came to him whether or not he was able to 
change the stones into bread. Then the conviction arose 
that his authority was not great enough to enchain the 
affections of the people. He wondered if God would 
not support him if he fell ; but Reason answered, " God 
will not sustain you if you disobey the laws of nature." 



218 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



Then, standing on the top of a mountain, he conceived 
the idea of possessing the surrounding lands, and of 
placing himself at the head of the people to over- 
throw the Roman power. The whole affair was a 
mere individual conflict. 

From what we have now said, the opinions of the 
Rationalists on all points of Christian doctrine become 
apparent. The sacraments are only symbols of an in- 
visible truth. Baptism is merely a sign of the purity I 
with which a Christian ought to live. The Lord's Sup- 
per is but a memorial of the death of Jesus, and unites 
us with him only morally. The church is a human in- 
stitution, whose teachings may be very distinct from the 
will of God. It gives therefore only relative aid. The 
future judgment is only a Rabbinical vision. Eveiy 
one receives retribution for his faults in this life ; and 
there is no eternity save that of God, in whom all beings 
are absorbed.* 

By this barren creed all foundation for a holy life 
was taken away. The people, believing such absurdi- 
ties, were transported from a period which is declared 
by the word of God to be blessed by the dispensatiori 
of the Spirit " to a cold age in which the excellence of 
the intellect was measured by the ingenuity of its 
thrusts at the Scriptures, and in which the highest piety 
was the strictest obedience to the dictates of natural 
reason. The inspired advice given to the seekers of wis- 
dom was travestied and made to read, " If any of you 
lack wisdom, let him ask of Heason that giveth to all 
men liberally and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given 
him." The Christian of that day had but little to 
minister to his spiritual growth. All the endeared in- 

* Von Ammon. Quoted from his Magazine in Saintes' ffistoire du 
BationalwTie, 



RATIONALISM PURELY NEGATIVE. 



219 



stitutions of his church were palsied by the strong arm 
of the Rationalists, who had nothing to put in their 
place. Their time was spent in destruction. They 
would pull all things down and erect nothing positive 
and useful. The doctrines which they professed to be- 
lieve were mere negatives, — the sheer denial of some- 
thing already in existence. 



CHAPTER IX. 



RENOVATION INAUGURATED BY SOHLEIERMACHER. 

The commencement of the nineteenth century found 
the German people in a state of almost hopeless de- 
pression. They saw their territory laid waste by the 
victorious Napoleon, and their thrones occupied by ru- 
lers of Gallic or Italian preferences. They had striven 
very sluggishly to stem the current of national subjec- 
tion and humiliation. The star of France being in the 
ascendant, the Rhine was no longer their friendly ally 
and western limit. No stage in the history of a people 
is more gloomy and calls more loudly for sympathy than 
when national prestige is gone, and dignities usurped by 
foreign conquerors. Though the apathy of despair is a 
theme more becoming the poet than the historian, we 
find a vivid description of the sadness and desolation 
produced by the French domination given by one who 
deeply felt the disgrace of his country. This writer 
says : 

^' The Divine Nemesis now stretched forth her hand 
against devoted Germany, and chastened her rulers and 
her people for the sins and transgressions of many 
generations. Like those wild sons of the desert, whom 
in the seventh century heaven let loose to punish the 



FRENCH DOMmATION. 



221 



degenerate Christians of the East, the new Islamite 
hordes of revolutionary France were permitted by Di- 
vine Providence to spread through Germany, as through 
almost every country in Europe, terror and desolation. 

" What shall I say of the endless evils that accompa- 
nied and followed the march of her armies, the desolation 
of provinces, the plunder of cities, the spoliation of church 
property, the desecration of altars, the proscription of 
the virtuous, the exaltation of the unworthy members 
of society, the horrid mummeries of irreligion practised 
in many of the conquered cities, the degradation of life 
and the profanation of death 1 Such were the calamities 
that mai'ked the course of these devastating hosts. And 
yet the evils inflicted by Jacobin France were less intense 
and less permanent than those exercised by her legisla- 
tion. In politics the expulsion of the ecclesiastical elec- 
tors, who, though they had sometimes given in to the false 
spirit of the age, had ever been the mildest and most 
benevolent of rulers ; the proscription of a nobility that 
had ever lived in the kindliest relations with its ten- 
antry; and on the ruins of old aristocratic and muni, 
cipal institutions that had long guarded and sustained 
popular freedom, a coarse, leveling tyranny, sometimes 
democratic, sometimes imperial, established ; in the 
church the oppression of the priesthood, a heartless reli- 
gious indifferentism, undignified even by attempts at 
philosophic speculation, propagated and encouraged ; and 
through the poisoned channels of education the taint of 
infidelity transmitted to generations yet unborn. Such 
were the evils that followed the establishment of the 
French domination in the conquered provinces of 
Germany. Doubtless, through the all-wise dispensa- 
tions of that Providence who bringeth good out of evil, 
this fearful revolution has partly become, and will yet 

1(5 



222 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



further become, the occasion of the moral and social 
regeneration of Europe." ^ 

The patriot saw his country degraded, but the 
Christian wept for his absent faith. Rationalism was 
strongest when national humiliation was deepest. 
These formed a fitting twinship. It is a scathing 
comment on the influence of skepticism upon a people 
that, in general, the highest feeling of nationality is co- 
existent with the devoutest piety. It is the very nature 
of infidelity to deaden the emotions of patriotism, and 
that country can hardly expect to prove successful if it 
engage in war while its citizens are imbued with reli- 
gious doubt. If lands are conquered, it knows not how 
to govern them ; if defeated, skepticism affords but 
little comfort in the night of disaster. We do not at- 
tach a fictitious importance to Rationalism when we say 
that it was the prime agent which prevented the Ger 
mans from the struggle of self-liberation, and that the 
victory of Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna would 
never have been needed had those people remained 
faithful to the precedents furnished by the Reformers. 

When Fichte was in his old age, and had completed 
his system of philosophy, he published his Addresses 
to the German People. Political writing was a new 
field for him, and yet, whoever will take the pains to 
study the fruits of his thinking, will easily perceive 
that the spirit animating the Addresses was the same 
which pervaded his entire philosophy. He saw the 
degradation of his country. Though at a time of life 
when youthful fervor is supposed to have passed away, 
he became inflamed with indignation at the insolence 
of the conqueror and the apathy of his countrymen, and 
addressed himself to the consciousness of the people by 

^ Mohler's Symbolism^ Memoir of Author. 



LIBERATION AND RESTORATION. 



223 



calling upon them to arise, and reclotlie themselves 
with their old historic strength. His voice was not 
disregarded. The result proved that those who had 
thought him in his dotage, and only indulging its 
loquacity, were much mistaken. He wrote that enthu- 
siastic appeal with a great aim. He had spent the most 
of his life in other fields, but posterity will never fail to 
honor those who, whatever their habits of thinking 
may have been, for once at least have the sagacity to 
see the wants of their times, and possess the still higher 
wisdom of meeting them. Fichte died in 1814 ; but it 
was at a time when, Simeon-like, he could congratulate 
himself upon the prospects of humanity. He still felt 
the rich glow of youth when, in his last days, he could 
say : " The morning light has broken, and already gilds 
the mountain-tops, and gives promise of the great com- 
ing day." 

After independence had been achieved and the 
downfall of Napoleon had become a fact, there ap- 
peared evidences of new evangelical life. When the 
German soldiers recrossed the river which their ancestors 
had loved to call " Father Rhine," and felt themselves 
the proud possessors of free soil, not only they, but all 
their countrymen living in the Protestant principalities, 
manifested a decided dissatisfaction with that skepti- 
cism which had paralyzed them. Moreover, the memory 
that France had been the chief agent in introducing 
Eationalism was not likely to diminish their hatred of 
all infidelity. The masses breathed more freely, but 
they were still imbued with serious error. Restoration 
was the watchword in politics ; but it was soon trans- 
ferred to the domain of religion and theology. 

But great as was the influence of the wars of free- 
dom in bringing back the German heart to an intense 



224 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



desire for a more elevated nationality, we must not be 
unmindful of tlie great theological forces which were 
preparing for a thorough religious renovation. 

They met in Schleiermacher. When quite young 
he was placed, first at Niesky and afterward at Barby, 
in the care of the Moravians. It was among these de 
vout people that he became inspired with that enthu 
siastic love of inner relig-ious feelino; which characterized 
his entire career. The traces of Moravian piety are per- 
ceptible in all his writings. His own words concern- 
ing his early training are very touching. " Piety," says 
he, " was the maternal bosom, in the sacred shade of 
which my youth was passed, and which prepared me for 
the yet unknown scenes of the world. In piety my 
spirit breathed before I found my peculiar station in 
science and the affairs of life ; it aided me when I began 
to examine into the faith of my fathers, and to purify 
my thoughts and feelings from all alloy ; it remained 
with me when the God and immortality of my child- 
hood disappeared from my doubting sight ; it guided 
me in active life ; it enabled me to keep my character 
duly balanced between my faults and virtues ; through 
its means I have experienced friendship and love." 

He became a student at Halle, and thence removed 
to Berlin, where he was appointed chaplain to the 
House of Charity. While in that metropolis he had 
rare opportunities for the study of his times. He saw 
that the indifference and doubt which centered in the 
court and the university, controlled the leaders of theol- 
ogy, literature, and statesmanship. He drew his philos- 
ophy largely from Jacobi, exhibiting with that thinker 
his dissatisfaction at the existing condition of meta- 
physics and theology. Schleiermacher could not look 
upon the dearth around him without the deepest emo- 



schleiermaciier's discourses. 



225 



tion. He asked himself if there was no remedy for the 
wide-spread evil. The seat of the disease appeared to 
him to be the false deification of reason in particular ; 
and the general mistake of making religion dependent 
upon external bases instead of upon the heart and con- 
sciousness of man. His conclusion was that both the 
friends and enemies of Kationalism were mistaken, and 
that religion consists not in knowledge but in feeling. 
It was in 1799 that he wrote his Discourses on Religion 
addressed to its Cultivated Despisers. Striking at the 
principal existing evil, which was indifference, he aimed 
to show the only method for the eradication of them all. 

Robert Alfred Vaughan, in speaking of the position 
of this work, says : In these essays Schleiermacher 
meets the Rationalist objector on his own ground. In 
what aspect, he asks, have you considered religion that 
you so despise it ? Have you looked on its outward man- 
ifestations only ? These the peculiarities of an age or a 
nation may modify. You should have looked deeper. 
That which constitutes the religious life has escaped 
you. Your criticism has dissected a dead creed. That 
scalpel will never detect a soul. Or will you aver that 
you have indeed looked upon religion in its inward 
reality ? Then you must acknowledge that the idea of 
religion is inherent in human nature, that it is a great 
necessity of our kind. Your quarrel lies in this case, 
not vrith religion itself, but with the corruptions of it. 
In the name of humanity you are called on to examine 
closely, to appreciate duly what has been already done 
towards the emancipation of the true and eternal which 
lies beneath these fonns, — to assist in what may yet 
remain. Schleiermacher separates the province of reli- 
gion from those of action and of knowledge. Religion 
Is not morality, it is not science. Its seat is found ac- 



226 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



cordiiigly in the third element of our nature — the feel- 
ing. Its essential is a right state of the heart. To de- 
grade religion to the position of a mere pui'veyor of 
motive to morality is not more dishonorable to the 
ethics which must ask than to the religion which will 
render such assistance. . . . The feeliag Schleier 
macher advocates, is not the fanaticism of the ignorant 
or the visionary emotion of the idle. It is not an aim- 
less reverie shrinking morbidly fi'om the light of clear 
and definite thought. Feeling, in its sound condition, 
affects both our conception and our will, leads to knowl- 
edge and to action. Neither knowledge nor morality 
are in themselves the measure of a man's religiousness. 
Yet religion is requisite to true wisdom and morality 
inseparable from true religion. He points out the hurt- 
fulness of a union between church and state. With in- 
dignant eloquence he descants on the evils which have 
befallen the church since first the hem of the priestly 
robe swept the marble of the imperial palace." ^ 

Religion being subjective, according to Schleier- 
macher, there can be interminable varieties of it. As 
we look at the universe in numerous lights, and thereby 
derive different impressions, so do we acquire a diversity 
of conceptions of religion. Hence it has had many forms 
among the nations of the earth. There is in each breast 
a religion derived from the object of intellectual or 
spiritual vision. Christianity is the great sum resulting 
from the antagonism of the finite and the infinite, the 
human and divine. The fall and redemption, separation 
and reunion, are the great elements from which we 
behold Christianity arise. Of all kinds of religion this 
alone can claim universal adaptation and rightful su- 
premacy. Christ was the revelator of a system more 

^ Essays and Remains. Yol. 1, pp. 61,62. 



schleiermachek's discoueses. 



227 



advanced tlian Polytheism or Judaism. Only by view- 
ing Ms religion in tlie simple light in which he places 
it can the mind find safety in its attempts to seek for a 
basis of faith. But, important as Christianity is, it will 
avail but little unless it become the heart-property of 
the theoretical believer. 

The Discourses produced a deep impression. They 
inspired the class to whom they had been directed vdth 
what it needed most of all, a sense of dependence. One 
could not read them and close the volume without won- 
dering how reason could be deified and the feeling of 
the heart ignored. There were multitudes of the edu- 
cated and cultivated throughout the land who, having 
become unfriendly to Christianity through the persist- 
ence of the Nationalists, were equally indisposed to be 
satisfied with a mere destructive theology. Something 
positive was what they wanted ; hence the great ser- 
vice of Schleiermacher in directing them to Christianity 
as the great sun in the heavens, and then to the heart 
as the organ able to behold the light. His labor was 
inestimably valuable. His utterances were full of the 
enthusiasm of youth, and, years later, he became so dis- 
satisfied with the work, that he said it had grown strange 
even to himself. As if over-careful of his reputation, to 
a subsequent edition he appended large explanatory 
notes in order to harmonize his recent with his former 
view^s. It would have been more becoming the mature 
man to leave those earnest appeals to reap their own 
reward. The times had changed ; and the necessity 
which had first called forth his appeal to the idolaters 
of doubt was sufiicient apology. Schleiermacher wrote 
other works, of which he and his disciples were much 
prouder ; but we doubt if he ever issued one more be- 
fitting the class addressed, or followed with more bene- 



228 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISI^r. 



ficial results. After liis pen had been stopped by death, 
those very discourses led many a skeptic in from the 
cold storm which beat about him, and gave him a 
place at the warm, cheerful fireside of Christian faith. 
Severe censure has been cast upon them because of their 
traces of Spinoza. It is enough to reply that their author, 
in the fourth edition, repudiated every word savoring 
of Pantheism. Of l)ooks, as of men, it Is best to form 
an estimate according to the j^urpose creating them, and 
the moral results following them. Neander, who could 
well observe the influence of the Discourses^ gives his 
testimony in the following language : " Those who at 
that time belonged to the rising generation will remem- 
ber with what power this book influenced the minds of 
the young, being written in all the vigor of youthful 
enthusiasm, and bearing witness to the neglected, unde- 
niable religious element in human nature. That which 
constitutes the j^eculiar characteristic of religion, 
namely, that it is an independent element in human na- 
ture, had fallen into oblivion by a one-sided rational or 
speculative tendency, or a one-sided disposition to absorb 
it in ethics. Schleiermacher had touched a note which, 
especially in the minds of youth, was sure to send forth 
its melody over the land. Men were led back into 
the depth of their heart, to perceive here a divine draw- 
ing which, when once called forth, might lead them 
beyond that which the author of this impulse had ex- 
pressed with distinct consciousness." 

In the year following the publication of the Dis- 
courses on Religion^ Schleiermacher issued his Mono 
logues. Here he gave the keynote to the century. 
While, only the year before, he would cultivate the 
feeling of dependence and turn the mind inward, in the 
Monologues he would lead man to a knowledge of his 



schleiermacher's monologues. 



229 



own power, and sliow how far Ms individuality can go 
upon its mission of success. Here he lauds inde- 
pendence. Hence the latter w^ork exerted the same 
kind of influence which attended Fichte's Addresses, 
and it had no small share in the reawakening of the 
people to theii' innate power. There might appear an 
antagonism between these two works of Schleiermacher, 
but, while the Discourses were the exposition of his 
religious views, the Monologues were merely the annun- 
ciation of his moral opinions subsequently developed in 
his System of Christian Ethics, The latter production 
was not destitute of enthusiasm. In fact, the Mono- 
logues, cultivating the spirit of independence, were far 
more capable of arousing and invigorating the mind and 
heaj't. The author would have no one blind to the 
native strength secreted in every breast, nor fail to cul- 
tivate sympathy and love through every period of life. 
The consciousness should be a world in itself ; not even 
seeking an external support, but satisfied with its own 
introspection ; not w^atching the storm without, but sat- 
isfied with surveying the gilded halls of its own castle- 
home. Thus there becomes, instead of old age, con- 
tinuous youth. This w^as his owm pure experience. 
" For," said he, " to the consciousness of inner freedom, 
and acting in accordance with it, correspond eternal 
youth and joy. This I have got hold of, and shall never 
give it up again ; and with a smile I thus see vanishing 
the light of mine eyes, and white hairs springing up 
among my fair locks. Whatever may happen, nothing 
shall grieve my heart ; the pulse of my inner life shall 
remain fresh until I die." 

A strong evidence that the German people were 
learning well the lessons now impressed upon them, was 
the increasing fondne'^s for the institutions of purer 



230 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



times and a growing taste for Listory. The mind found 
no comfort in the present, and it was therefore driven 
back upon the past for solace. Poets began to stai*t up, 
clothed with the spirit of independence, and singing of 
bygone days in such a way that they wf^re understood 
as saying, " Now you see what our fathers did ; how 
they believed and fought ; go you and do likewise." 
This new race sprang from the Romantic School, led 
by Tieck, Schlegel, and others ; but while it possessed 
that enthusiastic admiration of the past which these 
men indulged, their literary offspring exhibited a more 
earnest Christian faith. It was in that day of distress 
that Uhland fii*st poured forth his notes of awakening ; 
that Korner sounded the bugle-call of freedom ; that 
Ruckert molded sonnets stronger than bullets ; and 
Kerner sighed for a world where there is no war, and 
no rumors of war. 

Thus, when liberation came, no one class could 
claim to be the sole agent of its accomplishment. But 
it is certain that if the religious spirit of the people 
had not been appealed to and aroused, all literary and 
aesthetic efforts would have been in vain. It was the 
religious consciousness of the masses east of the Rhine 
which, being thoroughly awakened, drew the sword, 
and gained the victory of Waterloo. If we view that 
great crisis in European history in any light whatever, 
we cannot resist the conviction that its importance in 
the sphere of religion was equally great with its politi- 
cal magnitude. 

The King of Prussia, Frederic William III., began 
the work of ecclesiastical reconstruction. There were 
three questions of great delicacy, but of prime importance, 
whicli he attempted to solve : the constitution of the 
Protestant church ; the improvement of liturgical fonns ; 



UNION OF PEOTESTANT CHUECHES. 231 



and the union of the two Protestant confessions. 
Whatever course the king might adopt could not fail 
to make many enemies. But he belonged to a line of 
princes who had been aiming at the unity of the church 
for more than two centuries, and who, with the single 
exception of Frederic II., had endeavored to preserve 
popular faith in the Scriptures. Preparations were 
being made for the three hundredth anniversary jubilee 
of the Eeformation. The land being now redeemed, it 
was hoped that the occasion would inspire all hearts 
with confidence in the future of both state and church. 
The king deemed it a most favorable opportunity to 
bring the two branches of the Protestant church to- 
gether, not by one coming over to the territory of the 
other, but by mutual compromise, by the rejection of 
the terms Lutheran and Eeformed, and by the assump- 
tion of a new denominational name. 

There was really no reason why the two confessions 
should not be united, for it was very plain that the 
adherents of both were not rigid in their attachment. 
The Calvinists were no longer tenaciously devoted to 
their founder's views of absolute predestination, while 
the Lutherans, having departed from the doctrine of the 
real presence in the Lord's Supper, had adopted the 
Zwinglian theory. The rigid authority of the sym- 
bolical books was but loosely held by Lutherans and 
Calvinists. Frederic William III., seeing that the sep- 
aration was more imaginary than real, wrote a letter on 
the second of May, 1817, to Bishop Sack and Provost 
Hanstein, in which he said : " I expect proposals from 
you concerning the union of the two confessions, which 
are in fact so similar ; and as to the easiest method of 
effecting the same." On the twenty-seventh day of the 
same month he addressed a circular to all ecclesiastical 



282 ]IISTOKY OF KATIONALISM. 

functionaries within his dominions, calling upon them 
to exert their influence for the nniou of the two 
churches, and to give notice that the approaching Jubilee 
would be the signal for it to take place. The thirty- 
first of October was the anniversary, and the plan was 
so far successful that in many places the people and 
ministry of both confessions met on that day for divine 
worship and partook of the Lord's Supper together. 
The fruit of the movement was highly satisfactory to 
the Prussian King. Very soon after the anniversary of 
the Keformation, the terms hatheran and Reformed 
were stricken from oflScial documents, and the united 
State Church was henceforth known as the Evangelical 
Church. 

Beyond the limits of Prussia the Union gave rise to 
animated discussion ; but within the space of five years 
it was effected in Nassau, Ehenish Bavaria, the Palati- 
nate, Rhenish Hesse, and Dessau. It encountered the 
most decided opposition in the person of Harms, a pas- 
tor of the city of Kiel. He was not opposed to any 
movement which he thought would conduce to the 
advantage of Christ's kingdom, but it was his opinion 
that a return to the old Lutheran orthodoxy was more 
needed than the union of the two churches. The faith 
of the fathers, and not the union of Rationalistic divines, 
was, in his view, the only method of deliverance. 
Harms was little known outside his own province until 
the publication of his ninety-five Theses in connection 
%vith the original ninety-five nailed by Luther to the 
door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg. He was the 
son of a plain Holstein miller, and had been indoc- 
trinated into the Lutheran catechism during his early 
youth. His first lessons in Latin and Greek were re- 
ceived at the hands of a Rationalistic pastor in his na- 



harms' ninety-five theses. 



233 



tive town, but lie assisted his father in the mill until 
he was nineteen years of age. He then visited the 
university of Kiel, and in due time entered upon the 
pastoral work. He scorned the customary dry method 
of preaching, and aimed to reach the hearts of his hear- 
ers by any pi'aiseworthy method within his power. 
He made use of popular illustrations and ordinary inci- 
dents. His congregations increased, not only in the 
attendance of the middle and lower classes, but of the 
gentry and wealthy. His earnest plainness was so 
novel and unexpected that those who had long absent- 
ed themselves from the sanctuary were rejoiced to 
attend the ministrations of a preacher who seemed to 
believe something positive and scriptural, and who had 
the boldness to say what he did believe. 

This was the man who came forth on the occasion 
of the anniversary of the Eeformation as the champion 
for a return to the spirit of the olden time. He held 
that reason had totally supplanted revelation in the 
pulpits, universities, and lower schools, and that, until 
faith was crowned with supremacy, there was no hope 
of relief. The Theses exhibited great directness and 
clearness of appeal, and a keen insight into the methods 
of popular address. As a specimen of their style we 
introduce the following extracts : " IH. With the idea 
of a progressing Reformation, in the manner in which 
this idea is at present understood, and especially in the 
manner in which we are reminded of it, Lutheranism 
will be reformed back into heathenism, and Christianity 
out of the world. IX. In matters of faith, reason ; and 
as regards the life, conscience, may be called the Popes 
of our age. XI. Conscience cannot pardon sins. XXL 
In the sixteenth century the pardon of sins cost money, 
after all ; in the nineteenth it may be had without 



234 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



mouey, for people lielp themselves to it. XXIV. In an 
old hymn-book it was said, * Two places, O man, thou 
hast before thee ; ' but in modern times they hav^e slain 
the devil and dammed up hell. XXXII. The so-called 
religion of reason is destitute either of reason or re- 
ligion, or both. XLVII. If in matters of religion, rea- 
son claims to be more than a layman, it becomes a 
heretic; that avoid, Titus iii. 10. LXIV. Christians 
should be taught that they have the right not to toler- 
ate any unchristian and un-Lutheran doctrine in the 
pulpits, hymn-books, and school-books. LXVII. It is 
a strange claim that it must be permitted to teach a 
new faith fi'om a chair which the old faith had set up, 
and from a mouth to which the old faith gives food. 
LXXI. Reason, turned head, goes about in the Lu- 
theran church : it tears Christianity from the altar, 
casts God's works out of the pulpit, throws dirt into 
the baptismal water, receives all kinds of people as god- 
fathers, hisses the priests ; and all the people follow its 
example, and have done so for a long time. And yet 
it is not bound. On the contrary, this is thought to be 
the genuine doctrine of Luther, and not of Carlstadt. 
LXXIV. The assertion that we are more advanced and 
enlightened can surely not be proved by the present 
ignorance as regards true Christianity. Many thou- 
sands can declare, as did once the disciples of John, 
^ We have not so much as heard whether there be any 
Holy Ghost.' LXXV. Like a poor maid, they would 
not enrich the Lutheran church by a marriage. Do not 
perform it over Luther's bones ! He will thereby be 
recalled to life, and then — wo to you ! LXXVII. To say 
that time has taken away the wall of separation bfv 
tween Lutherans and Reformed is not a clear speech. 
LXXXII. Just as reason has prevented the Reform e«] 



EXCITEMENT PRODUCED BY HAEMS' THESES. 235 

from finisliing tlieir cliurcli and reducing it to unity, so 
tlie reception of reason into tlie Lutheran cliurcli would 
cause nothing but confusion and destruction. XCII. 
The Evangelical Catholic church is a glorious church ; 
she holds and forms herself preeminently by the Sacra- 
ment. XCIII. The Evangelical Reformed church is a 
glorious church; she holds and forms herself by the 
Word of God. XCIV. More glorious than either is the 
Evangelical Lutheran church; she holds and forms 
herself both by the Sacrament and the Word of God." ^ 
The appearance of the Theses of Harms created a 
great sensation. At a time when the union of the two 
churches became so desirable to many, they seemed to 
be a firebrand of destruction. Plainly, it would be 
best to return to the faith of the Reformers, but some 
of the most evangelical men claimed that the speediest 
method of return was through the Union. There appear- 
ed replies to the Theses from all quarters of the coun- 
try, almost every theologian of distinction assuming the 
character of the controversialist. As many as two 
hundred works appeared on the subject, the most of 
them bearing strongly against Harms. In Kiel and 
Holstein, where he was best known, the excitement was 
intense. Even churches and clubs were divided, and 
the rancor went so far as to invade private families, and 
create domestic divisions and heart-burnings. Seldom 
has a theological topic caused such a blaze of tumult. 
Harms was declared guilty of heinous offenses. He was 
charged with Catholicism, and reminded that attention 
to the mill would be much better employment than 
wielding the pen. He was accused of aiming at the 
protracted division of the sects, and ministering in all 
possible ways to the devices of Satan. His was the fate 

'Kahnis, History of Oerman Protestantism, pp. 224-225. 



236 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



of the partisan. He did a great work, for the contro- 
versy arising from his Theses hastened the settlement 
of those points which the times required should be 
solved as speedily as possible. Indeed, this very dis- 
cussion was a hopefiil indication ; for it proved that, 
long and terrible as the sway of Kationalism had been, 
there was still some interest felt among the people on 
the themes most intimately connected with faith and 
practice. It was a bright ray of the morning of reno- 
vation when the mere fact of vital religion was power- 
ful enough to enlist public attention. 



CHAPTER X. 



RELATIONS OF RATIONALISM AND SUPERNATURALISM. 
1810—1835. 

The task imposed upon the new state church taxed 
its powers to their utmost tension. Much that had been 
achieved was now no longer useful, for the stand-point 
of parties was totally changed. The Calvinist had 
written against Rationalism with one eye upon heresy 
and the other upon Lutheranism. The Lutheran had 
betrayed more spleen toward his Reformed brethren 
than toward the disciples of Semler and Ernesti. But 
when the union was effected there occurred the imme- 
diate necessity of new methods of attack upon the ene- 
mies of orthodoxy, and a steadfast cultivation of friendly 
feelings between newly-formed friends. As the ad- 
herents of the two confessions were now united, why 
might not theu* conjoined strength be wielded for the 
overthrow of skepticism? What was there, then, to 
prevent these great branches of the church from coming 
forward in perfect unison, and dealing strong blows 
against the system which had well nigh been the min 
of them both ? 

The devotees of reason saw their danger, for the 
day of the union was an evil one for them. But they 
did not become so alarmed as to take to flight and give 
lip the contest. On the other hand, they no sooner 

17 



238 HISTORY OF EATIONALISM • 

perceived the awakening of tlie German people to a 
sense of patriotism and independence, than they pre- 
dicted a similar disposition to return to the old faith ; 
and, being thus convinced of their danger, they wrote 
very vigorously, and attempted to be fully prepared 
for the onset. We therefore behold the anomaly of a 
system which had almost run its race before arriving 
at a formal exposition. 

Rationalism never attained to the dignity of a clear 
and cogent elucidation until the publication of Rohr's 
Letters on nationalism^ and of Wegscheider's Institutes. 
It had reached the acme of its prosperity at the be- 
ginning of the century, yet the former work was not 
written until 1813, and the latter not until 1817. 
There was power in both these productions. The for- 
mer was bold, popular, startling, and not without a 
show of learning. It was intended for the masses. The 
latter was a complement of the former; more heavy, 
but by virtue of its weight adapted to that class of peo- 
ple, everywhere abundant, who suspect either danger or 
puerility in every earnest sentence. The author held 
that it was the province of Protestantism to develop 
Christianity and Christian theology to a pure faith of 
reason. Issuing his work in the year of the Reforma- 
tion jubilee, he dedicated it to the shades of Luther. 
But Rohr and Wegscheider, as far as their capacity to 
injure Christian faith was concerned, stood at the wrong 
term of the history of Rationalism. Had they written 
a half century earlier their works would have been 
much more injurious to the Christian Church. But the 
system they would now strengthen and propagate was 
beginning to decay, and it was beyond their power to 
save it from ruin. They built a house for an occupant 
who was too old to enjoy either the fascinating sym- 



EEmHAED AND TITTMANN. 



239 



metry of its architecture or tlie gorgeous splendor of its 
furniture. 

It was at the time of whicli we speak tliat we fii'st 
find frequent use of the terms Rationalism and Super- 
naturalism. The more zealous Mends of each school 
marshaled themselves for the final struggle. The 
conflict became hand to hand, and quick and direct 
blows were dealt by both combatants. One of the 
foremost among the champions of the old faith was 
Reinhard, who declared that there was an irrepressible 
difference between reason and revelation, Rationalism 
and Supernaturalism ; that there was no possible point 
of compromise ; that they had nothing in common ; 
and that either the one or the other must exercise au- 
thority. Reinhard avowed himself in favor of the un- 
divided supremacy of faith, and would have reason 
subordinate. The key-note of his active life and in- 
spiring writings is found in his own language — words 
which, had he written nothing else, are sufficient to 
render him memorable. " While yet a boy," said he, 
" when I read the Bible I considered it the word of 
God to man, and never have I ceased to hold this view; 
so that now it is so holy to me and its utterances so 
decisive that a single sentence which would reproach 
its sanctity fills me with horror, just as an immoral 
sentiment would rouse my conviction of virtue." 

Tittmann entered the lists with a work directed at 
the very heart of Rationalism. He charged it with 
being unimprovable, and merely temporary and unsatis- 
factory. His book, entitled Supernaturalism^ Ration^ 
alism^ and Atheism, went still further ; for it aimed to 
show that if the Rationalists believe what they say, they 
are nothing less than atheists. Granting their premises, 
the conclusion must be that there is no God, and that 



240 



mSTOKY OF KATIOJ^ALISM. 



if God be not tlie author of revelation, there is also no 
God of nature. 

But while this war of books was going on with 
great bitterness on both sides, there arose a powerful 
band of mediators, who believed that no advantage 
could be gained for either combatant by continuing the 
strife, and that some point of union would have to be 
adopted before there could be peace and prosperity. 
Tzschirner differed from Eeinhard in his view of the 
antagonism between Rationalism and Supernaturalism. 
He contended that there were features of sympathy be- 
tween the two systems, and that the work of harmoniz- 
ing reason and revelation was not impossible. He 
therefore attempted, in the present case, what Calixtus 
had formerly tried in behalf of the Calvinists and Lu- 
therans. But the syncretism of Tzschirner was equally 
difficult of accomplishment. He conceded too much to 
the Rationalists : for he would unite them and their 
enemies on the ground that the aim of revelation is only 
to found a moral and religious institution through the 
personal agency of a Divine Ambassador ; to strengthen 
the truths of the religion of reason ; and to bring them 
ISO near to the consciences of men that the authority 
of reason to prove the origin and contents of revelation 
cannot be doubted. 

But Tzschirner's influence did not consist so much 
in the particular plan he would execute as in the ten- 
dency toward union which he was the chief agent in 
creating. There were numbers who, having read his 
works on this subject, were loud in their demand for 
the union of reason and revelation on some basis that 
would compromise neither the value of the former nor 
the sanctity of the latter. Many books appeared whose 
sole theme was the possible harmonization of these ele- 



schleiee]\iacher's system of docteiios. 241 

iiients, wliicli heretofore had been deemed utterly incon- 
gruous.^ Schott's Letters on Religion and the Faith of 
the Christian Revelation was directed to the same 
mark, and received great attention at the hands of both 
parties. According to their author, there was no op- 
position between the religion of reason and revelation, 
for Christianity is the mere expression of the highest 
reason. Both are derived from the same fountain, 
which is Divine reason. Nor is there any real differ- 
ence between the purpose of Christianity and that of 
the religion of reason. Each one aims at the highest 
good. 

But it soon became very evident that the Rational- 
ists and Supernaturalists were unable to harmonize. 
The points of difference were so decided that it was 
vain to expect a union. Eeinhard was correct in his 
opinion that one or the other would have to yield. 
Just at the crisis when these two systems were attract- 
ing greatest attention, Sehleiermacher published his 
System of Doctrines ^ 1821. In this work he proved 
what had not been conceived by any writer save him- 
self, that there was another road to progress. As soon 
as it gained a hearing the disputants saw that their 
arguments were no longer of value, that the ground 
of the discussion was altogether changed, and that the 
cause of faith must eventually triumph. The book 
was a complete surprise to all parties. It was a 
stroke of genius, destined alike to recast existing theol- 
ogy and to create a new public sentiment for the fiiture- 

The leading ideas developed in this master-piece 
of theology are Christ, Religion, and the Church. The 
Rationalists had ever held that reason is the criterion 
of truth, but Sehleiermacher elevates Christian con- 

^ Baur, Kirchengeschichte d. 19 Jahrhunderts, pp. 180-181. 



242 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 

scioTisness to the throne. They had reduced religion to 
a mere formal morality ; yet he shows that religion and 
morality are very different, and that the former consists 
neither in knowledge or action, but in the sentiment or 
feeling of the heart. Thus he develops the opinion first 
published in the Disco arses on Religion. He uses the 
term " piety " to designate religion. This piety should 
become the great spring of our life and the inspiring 
power of faith. There is no real inconsistency between 
knowledge and piety ; they can harmonize beautifully 
w^hen carried to their loftiest extent. The religious 
feeling, which judges truth, is characterized by absolute 
dependence. This is not degrading to man, but his true 
dignity consists in it. We have different concep- 
tions of God, derived from the feeling of dependence, 
which is varied according to the nature of outward cir- 
cumstances. Christ must be judged by us not so much 
according to the received accounts of his life as by his 
great relations to us as Redeemer and Saviour. Our 
view of him must be deeper than his mere incarnation. 
He was concerned in creation just so far as it was 
not completed until redeemed. If we would have 
communion with God we can enjoy it only through the 
medium of Christ. The peculiar value of redemption 
lies in its applicability to our necessity for salvation. 
The very sinlessness of Christ can be in a measure in- 
corporated with our humanity, and we should aim after 
the mind that was in Christ. We are never fully 
united with Christ until we have a perfect spirit of de- 
pendence. When this occurs, the soul is passing into 
the glorious condition of the new birth. The church is 
the depository of that spirit of Christ which every be- 
liever must enjoy in order to inherit eternal life. The 
church, however, is not self-existent. Like the heavenly 



THEOLOGICAL EKEOES OF SCHLEIEKMACHER. 243 

bodies, whose motions are constantly maintained by 
infinite power, the church is ever dependent upon 
Christ's agency for its very life. Christ is the spirit 
moving in history and controlling all things for the 
greatest good. The church is in some sense an organ- 
ism of which Christ is the head. This fact is the cen- 
tral point of theology, for without Christ our faith is 
vain.^ 

Such teaching was what the times needed. The 
mind required to be directed to Christ as the only 
remedy for skepticism. But we must confess that, in 
the midst of some of the most evangelical expositions of 
divine truth, Schleiermacher gave expression to serious 
doubts. He disclaimed any great authority inherent in 
the Old Testament in the following style : " The Old 
Testament Scriptures are indebted for their place in our 
Bible partly to the appeals made to them by the New 
Testament Scriptures, and partly to the historic connec- 
tion of Christian worship and the Jewish synagogue, 
without participating, on that account, in the normal 
dignity, or inspiration, of those of the New Testament." ^ 
As far as the inspiration of the Old Testament is con- 
cerned, there must be a distinction observed between 
the law and the prophets. The law cannot be inspired, 
for the spirit that could inspire it would be in conflict 
mth that which God sends into the heart by virtue of 
our connection with Christ. Upon the law depend all 
the subsequent historical books ; and both are, there- 
fore, uninspired, according to the standard by which 

' For summaries of Schleiermaclier's views, see Herzog, Encyclopcedie ; 
Baur, Kirchengeschichte des 19 Jahrhunderts ; Vaughan, Essays and He- 
mains; Gieseler, Kirchengeschichte vol. vi. ; Kurtz, Church History, vol. ii. ; 
Saintes, Histoire du Rationalisme ; Farrar, History of Free Though t ; and 
Anberlen, Gdttliche Offenharung, vol. i. 

^ Vie Glauhenslehre, 



24:4 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISIir. 



we judge tlie New Testament. The prominent poi'tion,-^ 
of tlie prophetic writings proceed principally from the 
material spirit of the jDeople, which is not the Christian 
spirit. 

It is plain that Schleiermacher's views concern- 
ing the Trinity were defective. He despatches it thus : 
" The chui-ch doctrine of the Trinity demands that we 
should think each of the three persons equal to the 
Divine Being, and vice versa; and each of the three 
persons equal to the others. We are unable to do 
either the one or the other, but can only conceive the 
persons in a gradation ; and in like manner the unity 
of the substance either less than the persons, or the con- 
trary." He discourses eloquently of the Spirit; but, 
after all, he teaches that the Holy Ghost is only the 
common spirit of the Chiistian church as a corporate 
body striving after unity. The tei^m " common spirit," 
which he employs, he understands to be the same that 
is used in worldly j)olity ; that is, the common tendency 
in all, who form one moral person, toward the welfare 
of the whole. This beneficial sentiment is, in each, the 
peculiar love to every individual. The Holy Ghost is 
the union of the Divine Being with human nature, in 
the form of the common spirit animating the corporate 
life of the faithful. Schleiermacher did not reject 
miracles altogether as historical facts, but cast doubt 
upon their character by holding that, if they did occui', 
it was only in conformity with a higher nature of which 
we know nothing. His opinion concerning the doctrine 
of angels was not orthodox ; for he rejected the exist- 
ence of the devil, and the supposition of the fall of an- 
gels from heaven. Some of the most important events 
in connection with Christ were discarded by him as 
unnecessary to saving faith, namely, the miraculous 



schleiermacher's theological POSITIOI^". 245 

conception, the resurrection, ascension, and return of 
Cluist to judgment. In Ms opinion sin was L artfulness, 
not guilt. 

It is astonishing that we find so much truth and 
eri'or concentrated in the same man. But Neander was 
nevertheless correct in the words in which he an- 
nounced Schleiermacher's death : We have now lost 
a man from whom will be dated henceforth a new era 
in the history of theology." In reading closely some 
of his false positions, we soon meet with something so 
deep and spiritually earnest that we are forgetful of the 
doubt, being attracted by the greater glow of the living 
truth. As life advanced he improved in his apprecia- 
tion of doctrine, and his latest works are hardly recog- 
nizable as written by the same hand. He published 
several books, of which we have made no mention, but 
in all the fruits of his pen he revealed an unfailing 
love of a personal Eedeemer. His sermons were the 
outflow of his genial nature, kindled by his clear view 
of Christ's communion with his living disciples. Mr. 
Farrar eloquently sums up his woi*k, though it must be 
acknowledged that this discriminating writer lived too 
near the time of Schleiermacher's activity to bestow an 
impartial estimate upon either the theological position 
of the man or the influence resulting from him. " We 
have seen," says this author, " how completely he caught 
the influences of his time, absorbed them and transmitted 
them. If his teaching was defective in its constructive 
side ; if he did not attain the firm grasp of objective 
verity which is implied in perfect doctrinal, not to say 
critical, orthodoxy, he at least gave the death-blow to 
the old Rationalism, which either from an empirical or 
a rational point of view, proposed to gain such a philos- 
ophy of religion as reduced it to morality. He rekin- 



246 



HISTORY OF RATIOI^'ALISM. 



died spiritual apprehensions ; he, above all, drew atten- 
tion to the peculiar character of Christianity, as some- 
thing more than the republication of natural religion, 
in the same manner that the Christian consciousness 
offered something more than merely moral experience. 
He set forth, however imperfectly, the idea of redemp- 
tion, and the personality of the Redeemer ; and awak- 
ened religious aspirations, which led his successors to a 
deeper appreciation of the truth as it is in Jesus. Much 
of his theology and some part of his philosophy had 
only a temporary interest relatively to the times ; but 
his influence was perpetual. The faults were those of 
his age ; the excellencies were his own. Men caught 
his deep love to a personal Christ without imbibing 
his doctrinal opinions. His own views became more 
evangelical as his life went on, and the views of his 
disciples more deeply sciiptural than those of their 
master. Thus the light kindled by him waxed purer 
and purer. The mantle remained after the prophet's 
spirit had ascended to the God that gave it." ^ 

De Wette was, like Schleiermacher, his friend and 
colleague at Berlin, a man in whom can be seen all the 
marks of a transition-character. There are two sides to 
his theological views, one bearing upon the old Ra- 
tionalism and in sympathy with it, the other directly 
tending to revive faith and religion. Even before 
Schleiermacher became generally known, De Wette 
had openly declared that religion can be based upon 
feeling alone, and that a personal Saviour is the neces- 
sary centre of Christian faith. The entire theology of 
De Wette was the outgrowth of the cold, critical phi- 
losophy of Kant and the more earnest and living system 
of Fries. He was, therefore, a two-fold personage, and 

' Critical History of Free Thought, p.. 249. 



DE WETTE'S view OF THE GOSPELS. 247 

it is not an easy task to harmonize his theories. One 
set of his opinions was based upon truth, the other on 
beauty. Religion has two elements, faith and feeling ; 
doctrines and aesthetics. Religion may exist aestheti- 
cally, but it can only become vital in the feeling, or self- 
consciousness. Religious feeling embraces three shades : 
enthusiasm or inspiration, resignation, and devotion. 
Eveiy history is, in a certain sense, symbolical. It is 
the mere reflection or copy of the human mind in its 
activity. So are the appearance of Christ, his life, and 
death, in some degree symbolical. In this symbolism 
consists the character of the Christian revelation. Here 
have appeared the eternal ideas of reason in their great- 
est purity and fullness ; and Rationalism is nothing 
more than a philosophical view of the Christian revela- 
tion of faith, or the knowledge of the relations in which 
idea and symbol stand to each other in Christianity. 
Therefore, we must judge the miraculous accounts of 
the evangelists as symbols of the ideas existing in the 
early history of Christianity. 

De Wette reflects somewhat on the moral character 
of John, perhaps without intention, when he supposes 
him to have wiitten late in life — a time when his faith 
would naturally predominate over his love of facts. 
Strauss couples De Wette with Vater, as having 
placed upon a solid foundation the mythical explication 
of the history of the Bible.^ According to De Wette, 
the narrator may intend to write history, but he ob- 
viously does it in a poetic way. The first three evan- 
gelists betray a legendary and even a mythical charac- 
ter. This explains the discrepancies in their histories, 
and also in the discourses and doctrines of Jesus. The 
miracle that took place at the baptism of Christ was a 

^ lAfe of Jems — Introduction, 



'2^S HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 

pure myth ; and the resurrection and reappearance of 
Christ have their existence more in the mind than in 
history. With this view of the New Testament, it is 
not sui^prising that the Old should receive even more 
rigorous usage. The larger part of the Pentateuch 
was supposed to be taken from two old documents, the 
Elohistic and Jehovistic, and was compiled somewhere 
near the close of the legal period. The five books, pur. 
porting to have been witten by Moses, are the Hebrew 
epic, and contain no more truth than the great epic of 
the Greeks. As the Iliad and Odyssey are the produc- 
tion of the rhapsodists, so is the Pentateuch, with the 
exception of the Decalogue, the continuous and anony- 
mous work of the priesthood. Abraham and Isaac are 
equally fabulous with Ulysses and Agamemnon. A 
Canaanitish Homer could have invented nothing better 
than the journeys of Jacob and the marriage of Rebecca. 
The departure from Egypt, the forty years in the wdlder- 
ness, the seventy elders at the head of the tribes, and 
the complaints of Aaron are each an independent myth. 
The character of myths is varied in different books ; 
poetic in Genesis, juridical in Exodus, priestly in 
Leviticus, political in Numbers, etymological, diplo- 
matical, and genealogical, but seldom historical, in Deu- 
teronomy. 

De Wette's theological novel, Theodore, or the 
DouUer's Consecration, 1822, was designed to banish 
the doubts of the skeptic by seeking refuge in the theol- 
ogy of feeling. Tholuck replied to it in his Guido 
am.d Julius, in which he proves that a deep appreciation 
and acceptance of Christ by the soul is the only remedy 
for infidelity. We perceive in De Wette a continual 
conflict between the longings of his heart and the theo- 
logical creed to which he attached himself. The lines 



NEANDER. 



249 



written by him just before his death touchingly de- 
clare the great failure of his life : 

" I lived in times of doubt and strife, 

When childlike faith was forced to yield : 
I struggled to the end of life, 
Alas ! I did not gain the field." 

With the name of the lamented Neander we hail the 
morning light of reviving faith. He was one of the 
purest characters in the history of the modern church. 
His influence was so great as to lead very many of the 
young men of Germany to embrace the vital doc- 
trines of Christianity. His father was a Jewish peddler, 
Emanuel Mendel, and the boy was named David at 
circumcision. Various forces co-operated in directing 
his mind toward the Christian religion ; of which we 
might mention the philosophy of Plato, the Romantic 
School, and above all, Schleiermacher's Discourses on 
Religion. When seventeen years of age he was bap- 
tized and received the combined name of his sponsors, 
John Augustus William Neander. In 1810 he began 
to lecture in the University of Heidelberg, and in 1813^ 
owing to the publication of his Julian the Apostate^ he 
received a call to Berlin. He was there brought into the 
society of Schleiermacher, Marheineke, De Wette, Fichte^ 
Hegel, Ritter, Ranke and other celebrated men. It was 
very significant of the new life now beginning to be 
felt, that his lectures were numerously attended. Even 
Schleiermacher, his co-laborer for twenty years in the 
theological faculty, had a limited circle of auditors com- 
pared with the throngs who went to hear Neander. 

His theological views were more positive and evan- 
gelical than those entertained by any of his associates. 
He shared, with the most orthodox of them, the opinion 



250 



niSTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



that religion is based upon feeling. The Christian con- 
sciousness was the sum of his theology. " By this term," 
said he, " is designated the power of the Christian faith 
in the subjective life of the single individual, in the 
congregation, and in the church generally ; a power in- 
dependent and ruling according to its own law, — that 
which, according to the word of our Lord, must first 
form the leaven of every other historical development 
of mankind." Neander was not a man of very strong 
prejudices; yet his disapprobation of the destructive 
nature of Rationalism was very decided. The reduction 
of religion to intellectualism received severe rebukes at 
his hand on more than one occasion. " I shall never 
cease," he declared, " to protest against the one-sided in- 
tellectualism, that fanaticism of the understanding, which 
is spreading more and more, and which threatens to 
chano^e man into an intellis^ent, over-wise beast. But at 
the same time I must protest against that tendency which 
would put a stop to the process of development of the- 
ology ; which, in impatient haste, would anticipate its 
aim and goal, although with an enthusiasm for that 
which is raised above the change of the days, — an 
enthusiasm which commands all respect, and in which 
the hackneyed newspaper categories of Progress and 
Retrogression are out of the question." 

Neander's motto, " Pectus est, quod theologum facit," 
unfolds his whole theological system and life-career. The 
Germans call his creed " Pectoralism," in view of the in- 
ner basis of his faith. With him, religion amounts to 
nothing without Christ. Nor must Christ be the mei e 
subject of study ; the soul and its manifold affections 
must embrace him. The barrenness of Judaism is done 
away in him, and the emptiness of Rationalistic criti- 
cism is successfully met by the fullness found in Chris- 



NEANDER AS AN AUTHOK. 



251 



tianity. Sin is not merely hurtful and prejudicial, but 
it induces guilt and danger. It can be pardoned only 
through the death and mediation of Christ. The illus- 
trations of devout service to be found in the history of 
the church should serve as examples for succeeding 
times. Neander spent much of the careful labor of his 
life in portraying prominent characters ; for it was his 
opinion that individuals sometimes combine the fea- 
tures of their times, the virtues or the vices prevalent ; 
and that if these individualities be clearly defined the 
church is furnished with valuable lessons for centuries. 
The work published when he was twenty-two years old, 
Julian the Apostate^ was the beginning of a series of simi- 
lar monographs designed to show the importance of the 
individual in history, and to point out great crises in the 
religious life of man. He subsequently produced works 
entitled St Bernard^ Gnosticism^ St. Ohrysostom^ 
Tertullian^ History of tJie Apostolic Age^ Life of Christ, 
and Memorials of Christian Life, To these may be add- 
ed a few practical commentaries, essays, and a History 
of Doct/rines, 

But the great achievement of Neander was his 
General History of the Christian Religion and Church, 
embracing the period from the close of the apostolic 
age to the Council of Basle in 1430. Christianity 
is, in his conception, not simply a growth or de- 
velopment of man ; it is a new power, a creation 
of God, a divine gift to the world. Therefore the his- 
tory of the Church of Christ is the clear exhibition of 
the divine strength of Christianity; it is a school of 
Christian experience, a voice of warning and in- 
struction for all who will hear it as it echoes down 
through the grand march of centuries.^ The history of 

* History of the Christian Religion and Church, Preface to First Edition, 



252 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



the church, far from being the scholar's theme alone, 
furnishes nutritious food for the practical life of all the 
disciples of the Lord. If its history be permitted to 
exert its due influence upon the world, we shall be- 
hold a gratifying and widespread improvement in 
all things that increase happiness and lead heaven- 
ward. 

It is quite too late to answer the charge against 
Neander's profundity. His achievements are his 
best defense, and the pen of censure has already quite 
lost its bitterness. It is not time for him to be 
fully appreciated at home ; for, as the beauty of the 
landscape is dependent on the sun to make it apparent, 
so Neander's character and labors must wait for an hon- 
orable and universal recognition until new evangelical 
light shall have overspread the land. A century hence 
he will be loved as dearly by the German people as he 
was by those weeping students who gathered around his 
grave to see his face for the last time. What Krum- 
macher said on the occasion of his burial will yet be the 
testimony of the church, whose history was Neander's 
earthly Eden : " One of the noblest of the noble in the 
Kingdom of God, a prince in Zion, the youngest of the 
church Fathers, has departed from us." 

Neander's relation to his times was most important. 
The various influences hitherto employed against Ea- 
tionalism had proceeded as far toward its extinction aa 
it was possible for them to go. Philosophy and doc- 
- trinal theology had spent their efforts. The history of 
the church having always been treated mechanically, it 
was now necessary that the continued presence and 
agency of Christ with his people should be carefully 
portrayed. The progress of his church needed to be 
represented as more than growth from natural causes, 



neander's personal appear ais^ce. 



253 



such as the force of civilization and education. It was 
necessary to show that a high superintending Wisdom 
is directing its path, overcoming its difficulties, and 
leading it through persecution and blood to ultimate 
triumph. Neander rendered this important service. 
He directed the vision of the theologian to a new field, 
and became the father of the best church historians of 
the nineteenth century. The childlike simplicity of 
his character was beautiful. Everything like vanity 
and pretense was as foreign to him as if he dwelt on a 
different planet. An appreciative German writer calls 
him a ''Protestant monk or saint, whose world was the 
cloister of the inner man, out of which he worked and 
tanght for the good of the church." 

Of his remarkable personal appearance, Dr. Schaff", 
who enjoyed his friendship, says : "In his outward ap- 
pearance Neander was a real curiosity, especially in the 
lecture-room. Think of a man of middle size, slender 
frame, homely but interesting and benevolent face, dark 
and strongly Jewish complexion, deep-seated, sparkling 
eyes, overshadowed by an unusually strong, bushy pair 
of eyebrows, black hair flowing in uncombed profusion 
over the forehead, an old-fashioned coat, a white cravat 
carelessly tied, as often behind or on one side of the 
neck as in front, a shabby hat set aslant, jack-boots 
reaching above the knee ; think of him thus either as 
sitting at home, surrounded by books on the shelves, on 
the table, on the few chairs, and all over the floor ; or 
as walking unter den Linden^ and in the Thiergarten of 
Berlin, leaning on the arm of his sister Hannchen, or a 
faithful student, his eyes shut or looking up to heaven, 
talking theology in the midst of the noise and fashion 
of the city, and presenting altogether a most singular 
contrast to the teeming life around him, stared at, 

18 



254 HISTORY OF RATIO^fALISM. | 

smiled at, wondered at, yet respectfully greeted by all 
who knew him ; or as finally standing on the rostrum, 
playing with a goose-quill which his amanuensis had al- 
ways to provide ; constantly crossing and recrossing his 
feet, bent forward, frequently sinking his head to dis^ 
charge a morbid flow of spittle, and then again sud- 
denly throwing it on high, especially when aroused to 
polemic zeal against pantheism and dead formalism ; at 
times fairly threatening to overturn the desk, and yet all 
the while pouring forth with the greatest earnestness 
and enthusiasm, without any other help than that of 
some illegible notes, an uninterrupted flow of learning 
and thought from the deep and pure fountain of the 
inner life ; and thus with all the oddity of the outside, at 
once commanding the veneration and confidence of 
every hearer ; imagine all this, and you have a picture 
of Neander, the most original phenomenon in the liter- 
ary world of this nineteenth century." ' 

' Germany — It8 Universities, TJieology, and Religion^ pp. 269, 270. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE BEAOTION PRODUCED BY STRAUSS' LIFE OF JESUS. 
1835—1848. 

It is related of Apelles, that, after finishing his 
pictures, he was in the habit of hanging them in front 
of his studio and then of concealing himself in order 
to hear unseen the criticisms of the passers-by. On one 
occasion, when a new picture was thus exposed to public 
inspection, a shoemaker stopped before it and observed 
that something was wrong about a sandal. After he 
had gone Apelles saw the justice of the objection and 
corrected the fault. The next day, when the shoemaker 
was passing again and saw that much importance had 
been attached to his opinion, he ventured to criticise a 
leg, but Apelles rushed out from behind the curtain, 
and, charging him with being hypercritical, told him 
that for the future he would do better to keep to his 
trade. The circumstance gave rise to the Roman 
proverb — Ne sutor ultra crepidam." 

The day was now near at hand when the criticism 
of the Scriptures, as conducted by the Rationalists, 
would go quite beyond the province of their authority 
and the bounds of moderation. When we read the cold, 
deliberate chapters of Ammon, Eichhorn, and Michaelis, 
we unconsciously identify ourselves with their genera- 
tion, and exclaim, " Surely there will never be a step be- 



256 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



yond this ; the knife can have no edge for a deeper in- 
cision." As Neander toiled in his study, digging up 
the buried treasures of the past and enriching them 
with the John-like purity of his own heart in order 
that he might faithfully interpret the divine guidance 
of the church, he no doubt rejoiced in the conviction 
that the Rationalists had achieved their last great suc- 
cess, and that the work before hiui and those who 
believed as he did was to be henceforth more con- 
structive than controversial. His co-workers were few 
in number, but they had pleasing indications in many 
quarters that their labors would have a triumphant 
issue. 

It was very evident that, though there was a general 
rejection of the doctrine of inspiration in that elevated 
sense which it is the glory of the American church to 
entertain, there were great numbers who had become 
as captivated with Schleiermacher's word, feeling^ as if 
it had been a harp-note from heaven. The people had 
thought so little about their own hearts within the last 
half century that they seemed to have forgotten their 
stewardship of the treasure. The whole land had been 
converted into a colossal thinking machine. And when 
the German people were told by a stentorian voice that 
man is emotional as well as intellectual they arose as 
from a long stupefaction. So, when Schleiermacher died , 
in 1834, there were many who said with unfeigned 
gratitude, " He is gone, but sweet be his sleep, for he 
has told us that we have heart and soul." 

Three years before Schleiermacher's death the spirit 
of Hegel had taken its departure. These were the two 
men who, though dead, were now speaking more author- 
itatively to the German mind than all others. Schlei- 
ermacher was represented by men more orthodox 



HEGELIAN SCHOOL. 



257 



than himself, who gave every assurance of leaving the 
world far better than they had found it. Hegel had 
taught too long and thoroughly to be without influence 
after his eyes had ceased to look upon his entranced 
auditors at Berlin. It was not long after his death that 
his favorite theory of antagonisms had a literal fulfill- 
ment in the course adopted by the adherents to his 
opinions. His most ardent disciples found it difficult to 
tell what he had believed definitely, so varied are the 
expressions of his views in the eighteen volumes of 
his works. Even the same book was interpreted differ- 
ently. His Philosophy of Religion was twice edited, 
fii^t in a conservative sense by Marheineke, and after- 
ward in a revolutionary light by Bruno Bauer/ Some 
passages in his History of Philosophy were written in 
defense of pantheism, while his later views have been 
brought forth in proof of his opposition to that error. 
Thus variously interpreted, and yet powerful in his hold 
upon the intellectual classes of Germany, it was impossi- 
ble for his disciples to live in harmony. The chief points 
at issue were the personality of God, the immortality of 
the sou], and the person of Christ. Either side might be 
taken and the position defended by the master's own 
words. The result of this diversity of interpretation 
was a schism. Hegel's school was divided, after the 
model of the French Chambers, into three sections — 
the Right, the Centre, the Left. The Eight asserted 
the orthodoxy of the Hegelian philosophy ; the Centre 
held a position corresponding to their name ; and the 
Left were unmitigated Rationalists. The last group were 
true to the skepticism inherited from their predecessors, 
and were radicals in church and state. They rejected 

^Appleton's Weio Am. Cyclopaedia; Art, Hegel. 



258 



mSTORT OF RATIONALISM. 



the personality of God, a future life, and the credibility 
of the Gospel narratives. 

Strauss was a Left Hegelian, and his lAfe of Jesus 
became the creed of his brethren in doubt. He was not 
in perfect harmony with all their extremes, but he co- 
operated with them, and gave them their chief glory. 

The world has seldom seen a literary venture more 
remarkable in contents or in history than this meteor 
across the firmament of German theology. To say that 
it was unexpected is but a faint expression of the uni- 
versal surprise occasioned by it. The Left Hegelians 
w^ere a limited school and the current of theological 
thought had been against them. Therefore, when the 
Life of Jesus appeared, it was a bold thrust from an 
arm thought to possess but little strength. The author, 
David Frederic Strauss, was a young lecturer on the- 
ology in the University of Tubingen. He had experi- 
enced the several shades of opinion prevalent during 
his student life. Beginning with the Romantic School, 
lingering awhile with Schleiermacher, and finally passing 
through the gate Beautiful of Hegel's system, he tar- 
ried with that master as " lord of the hill." His stay 
was not brief, like that of Bunyan's pilgrim. But satis- 
fied only by making greater progress, the philosophy of 
the great thinker became his Delectable Mountains, 
" beautiful with woods, vineyards, fruits of all sorts, 
flowers also, with springs and fountains, very delectable 
to behold." 

Strauss was but twenty-eight years old when his 
cold, passionless, and pungent piece of skeptical mech- 
anism was presented to the world. Who would sus- 
pect that quiet young man of possessing so much power 
over the minds of his countrymen ? M. Quinet, speak- 
ing of a visit to him, said, " Beneath this mask of fatal- 



EECEPTION OF STEAUSS' LITE OF JESUS. 259 

ism I find in him a young man full of candor, of sweet- 
ness and modesty ; of a spirit almost mystical, and ap- 
parently saddened by the disturbance which he had oc- 
casioned." His book produced a universal impression 
in Europe. It was, to the moral sentiment of Christen- 
dom, the earthquake shock of the nineteenth century. 
Having been multiplied in cheap editions, it was read 
by students in every university and gymnasium, by 
passengers on the Rhine boats and in the mountain 
stages, and by a great number of private families. Even 
school children, imitating the example of their seniors, 
spent their leisure hours in its perusal. The most ob- 
scure provincial papei's contained copious extracts from 
it, and vied with each other in defending or opposing 
its positions. Crossing the German frontier, it was pub- 
lished in complete and abridged forms in all the princi- 
pal languages of Europe. Even staid Scotland, unable 
to escape the contagion, issued a popular edition of the 
exciting work. 

Nor were the views advanced by Strauss in his Life 
of Jesus less extraordinary than its very flattering 
reception. He was diametrically opposed to Ne- 
ander in the latter's estimate of the ideal and histor- 
ical. According to Strauss the idea is the very soul of 
all that is valuable in the past ; and history is the gross 
crust which envelops it. What is history in its early 
stages but so many faint legends ? Happy are we if, 
within them, we can discover the seed-truth. The same 
neglect of the movements of history in their outward 
form led Strauss into still another tendency which 
proved to be in direct conflict with Neander. The 
latter, as we have seen, was devoted to his theory of 
fche importance and power of personality in history. 
But Strauss rejected it as of small moment. He attach- 



260 



fflSTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



ed great importance to the issue involved, but regarded 
tlie persons engaged in bringing it to pass as mere 
machinery. 

This contempt of the historical and the personal is 
the key to Strauss' work. The church, when it con- 
tinued faithful, had always looked to the Gospels as the 
Holy Sepulchre of its faith, and was ever ready to 
make a crusade against the power which would wrest it 
from her grasp. But, amid the conflicts occasioned by 
the growth of the destructive criticism, the Gospels had 
received at its hands a treatment no less severe than 
had been inflicted upon the history of the Old Testa- 
ment. Many theories had already been propounded by 
the Rationalists in order to account for them, but there 
was no general harmony among these men either on 
this or any subject of speculation. Wetstein, Michaelis, 
and Eichhorn were agreed that the Gospels were more 
human than divine, and the fate to which all the in- 
spired records were consigned by those critics and their 
sympathizers has its analogy in the treatment bestowed 
by vultures upon the carcass of the exhausted beast that 
has fallen by the wayside. But, after all, the accounts of 
the evangelists had suffered less severely than any 
other part of the Scriptures, and the injury they had 
sustained was owing more to the attacks made on the 
historical and prophetical portions of the Old Testa- 
ment than to any immediate invasion. For the Bible is a 
unity. If but one book be mutilated the whole oi-gan- 
ism is disturbed. 

The contest having been hitherto connected with 
other features of revelation more than with the pei'son 
of Christ, it was no part of the design of the Rational- 
ists to submit without staking a great battle upon the 
incarnation of the Messiah. Let them succeed here, 



THE MYTHICAL THEORY. 



261 



and they can rebuild more firmly all they have lost ; but 
if they fail, they will only bring to a more speedy ruin 
an edifice already in decay. Strauss undertook the 
work; and, having written for the learned alone, no one 
was more surprised than himself at the popular success 
of the lAfe of Jesus, 

According to him, the explanation of the mysterious 
accounts of Jesus of ISTazareth can be found in the 
theory of the myth. Strauss held that the Holy Land 
was fall of notions concerning his speedy appearance. 
The people were waiting for him, and were ready to 
hail his incarnation with rapture. Their opinions con- 
cerning him were already formed, owing to the expecta- 
tions they had inherited from their fathers. Therefore, 
any one who answered their views would be the Mes- 
siah. There was much in both the character and life of 
Christ which approached their crude notions of the 
promised one. For this reason their hearts went out 
toward him, and they called him " Jesus." The world was 
already prepared, and since Christ best fitted it, he was 
entitled to all the honor of being waited for and ac- 
cepted. All the prophecies of his incarnation were 
purely historical events. But the Jewish mind is 
very visionary and prone to allegory. Consequently, 
when Christ appeared among the Jews, it was not diffi- 
cult to trace a resemblance between him and other 
marked personages in history. 

Thus Christ did not organize the Church so much as 
the church created him. He existed and lived on earth, 
but very difierent was the real Jesus from that wonder- 
ful character described in the Gospels. The veritable 
Messiah was born of humble parentage, was baptized 
by John collected a few disciples, inveighed against the 
Pharisees and all others who placed themselves in antag- 



262 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



onism to him, and finally fell a victim to the cruelty of 
his foes. Years passed by after his death, and the po})U' 
lar imagination went wild with reports and exaggera- 
tions of the once obscure Nazarene. Great as the ideas 
of the people were before Christ appeared, they were 
infinitely magnified during the lapse of the thirty years 
between his death and the composition of the Gospels. 
These narratives are consequently not a representation 
of history, but of morbid popular fancies. The evan- 
gelists did not intend to deceive their readers ; their 
picturesque sketches were only designed to clothe the 
ideal in the garb of the real. ^' Be not so unkind," 
Strauss says in effect, " as to charge these poor unedu- 
cated men with evil purposes. They were very unsophis- 
ticated, and did not know enough to have any extended 
plan of trickery. They heard wonderful stories floating 
about, just such as one meets with in all countries after 
a prominent man has died ; and, as they had a little ca- 
pacity for using the pen, they wrote them down to 
the best of their ability. Their writings are curious 
but very defective, since the authors were too unprac- 
tised in literary work to perfect a master-piece. How 
little they dreamed of the reverence which future gen- 
erations would pay them ! Poor souls, they hardly 
knew what they were doing. One caught one story, 
and his friend another ; and it is a nice bit of mosaic 
which we find in their school-boy productions. No 
wonder their defendei-s are unable to harmonize their 
accounts. Let any four men who live among a legend 
loving people transcribe the traditions they hear from 
the lips of childhood and garrulous old age, or read in 
the popular romances of the day, and it will surprise 
no one that they do not agree. How can they tell 
the same things in the same way, since the sources 



INTRODUCTION TO STRAUSS' BOOKS. 263 



of each are so different ? Nor, witli only myths for 
warp and woof, is it at all surprising that we have noth- 
ing more than Homeric exaggerations when the fanciful 
fabric is once woven." 

The introduction to the lAfe of Jesus consists of an 
essay on the historical development of the mythical 
theory. Having stated its present shape and great 
value, it is then applied to the life of Christ in the body 
of the work. This is the climax of destructive criti- 
cism. Everything which Christ is reported by the 
Evangelists to have said or done shares the natural expla- 
nations of Strauss. From his very birth to his ascension, 
his life is no more remarkable than that of many others 
who have taken part in the public events of their times. 

Beginning with the annunciation and birth of John 
the Baptist, Strauss considers the apparition to Zacha- 
rias and his consequent dumbness as actual external 
circumstances, susceptible of a natural interpretation. 
Zacharias had a waking vision or ecstasy. Sucli a 
thing is not common, but in the present instance, many 
circumstances combined to produce an unusual state of 
mind. The exciting causes were, first^ the long- 
cherished desire to have a posterity ; second^ the exalted 
vocation of administering in the Holy Place and offer- 
ing up with the incense the prayers of the people to 
the throne of Jehovah, whicli seemed to Zacharias to 
foretoken the acceptance of his own prayer; and 
ihird^ perhaps an exhortation from his wife as lie left 
his house, similar to that of Eachel to Jacob. Gen. 
XXX. 1. In this highly excited state of mind, as he 
prays in the dimly-lighted sanctuary, he thinks of his 
most ardent wish, and, expecting that now or never his 
prayer shall be heard, he is prepared to discern a sign 
of its acc^eptance in the slightest occurrence. As the 



264 HISTOEY OF RATIOI^ALISM. I 

glimmer of the lamp falls upon the ascending cloud of 
incense, and shapes it into varying forms, the priest 
imagines that he perceives the figure of an angel. The 
apparition at first alarms him, but he soon regards it as an 
assurance from God that his ]3rayer is heard. No sooner 
does a transient doubt cross his mind, than the sensi- 
tively pious priest looks upon himself as sinful and 
believes himself reproved by the angel. Now, either 
an apoplectic seizure actually deprives him of speech, 
which he receives as the just punishment of his incre- 
dulity, until the excessive joy he experiences at the cir- 
cumcision of his son restores the power of utterance— so 
that dumbness is retained as an external, physical, 
though not miraculous occurrence — or the proceeding is 
psychologically understood ; namely, that Zacharias, in 
accordance Avith a Jewish superstition, for a time de- 
nied himself the use of the oftending member. Reani- 
mated in other respects by the extraordinary event, the 
priest returns home to his wife, and she becomes a 
second Sarah.^ 

The original histories are adduced, and the parallels 
fully drawn between them and the gospel narratives in 
order to show the mythical character of the latter. 
The birth of John the Baptist is the mongrel product 
of the Old Testament stories of the birth of Isaac, of 
Samson, and of Samuel. Every event related by the 
evangelists is so strained as to make it analogous to* 
other occurrences in Jewish history. The murder of 
the innocents by Herod is only a poetic plagiarism of 
the cruelty of Nimrod and Pharaoh ; the star which 
guided the shepherds, a memory of the star promised 
in the prophecy of Balaam; Christ explaining the 
Bible when twelve years old, a gloss upon the precocity 

^ Life of Jesus. Ch. I. American Edition. 



APPLICATIO^^^ OF THE MYTHICAL THEOEY. 265 

of Moses, Samuel, and Solomon ; the increase of the 
loaves, a union of the manna in the wilderness and the 
twenty loaves with which Elisha fed the people ; water 
changed into wine, a new version of the bitter waters 
made sweet ; the cross, a reminder of the brazen serpent; 
the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, the bloody 
sweat and the agony on the cross, poor copies from 
the Lamentations of Jeremiah; and the two thieves, 
the nailed hands and feet, the pierced side, the thu'st, 
and the last words of Jesus, are borrowed narra- 
tives from the sixty-ninth and twenty-second Psalms.^ 

The same mythical explanation is applied to the con- 
ception and divine character of Jesus. By entertaining 
such notions of him as we find in the gospels we dis- 
play a superstition worthy of the dim days of pagan 
legendry. In the world of mythology many great men 
had extraordinaiy births, and were sons of the gods. 
Jesus himself spoke of his heavenly origin, and called 
God his Father ; besides, his title as Messiah was " Son 
of God." From Matt. i. 22, it is further evident that the 
passage of Isaiah vii. 14, was referred to Jesus by the 
early Christian chui'ch. In conformity with this pas- 
sage the belief prevailed that Jesus, as the Messiah, 
should be born of a virgin by means of divine agency. 
It was therefore taken for granted that what was to be 
actually did occur ; and thus originated a philosophical, 
dogmatical myth concerning the birth of Jesus. But ac- 
cording to historical truth, Jesus was the ofi^spring of an 
ordinary marriage, between Joseph and Mary, which 
maintains at once the dignity of Jesus and the respect 
due to his mother. The transfiguration illustrates 
both the natural and mythical methods of inter- 
pretation. It is a reflection of the sc(?ne which trans- 

* Of. Beviie des Deux Mondes. Vol, 16. 



266 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



pired on Sinai at tlie giving of the law. The gospel 
account is an Ossianic fancy. Something merely ob- 
jective preseuted itself to the disciples, and this ex- 
plains how an object was perceived by several at once. 
They deceived themselves, when awake, as to what they i 
saw. That was natural, because they were all born I 
within the same circle of ideas, were in the same frame 
of mind, and in the same situation. According to this 
opinion, the essential fact in the scene on the mountain 
is a secret interview which Jesus had concerted, and, 
with a view to which, he took with him the three most 
confidential of his disciples. Paul us does not venture 
to determine who the two men were with whom Jesus 
held this interview; Kuinol conjectures that they 
were secret adherents of the same kind as Nicodemus ; 
and, according to Venturini, they were Essenes, secret 
allies of Jesus. Jesus prayed before these arrived, and 
the disciples, not being invited to join, slept. For the 
sleep noticed by Luke, though it were dreamless, is 
gladly retained in this interpretation, since a delusion 
appears more probable in the case of persons just awak- 
ing. On hearing strange voices talking with Jesus, 
they awake, and see him — who probably stood on a 
higher point of the mountain than they — enveloped in 
an unwonted brilliancy, caused by the reflection of the 
sun's rays from a sheet of snow. This light falling on 
Jesus is mistaken by them in the surprise of the 
moment for a supernatural illumination. They per- 
ceive the two men whom, for some unknown reasons, 
the drowsy Peter and the rest take for Moses and Elias. 
Their astonishment increases when they see the two 
Btrange individuals disappear in a bright morning cloud 
— which descends as they are in the act of departing — 
and hear one of them pronounce out of the cloud the 



RESTJERECTION OF CHRIST. 



267 



words, " This is my beloved Son in whom I am well 
pleased ; hear ye him." Under these cirenmstances 
they unavoidably regard this as a voice from heaven. 

The resurrection of Christ is regarded by Strauss as 
a psychological necessity placed upon the disciples, first 
to solve the contradiction between the ultimate fate of 
Jesus and their earlier opinion of him, and second to 
adopt into their idea of the Messiah the characteristics 
of suffering and death. 

" When once the idea of a resurrection of Jesus had 
been formed in this manner," says Strauss, " the great 
event could not have been allowed to happen so 
simply, but must be surrounded and embellished 
with all the pomp which the Jewish imagination fur- 
nished. The chief ornaments which stood at command 
for this purpose were angels ; hence these must open 
the grave of Jesus ; must, after he had come forth from 
it, keep watch in the empty place, and deliver to the 
women, — who, because without doubt women had the 
first visions, must be the first to go to the grave, — the 
tidings of what had happened. As it was Galilee where 
Jesus subsequently appeared to them, the journey of 
the disciples thither, which was nothing else than their 
return home, somewhat hastened by fear, was derived 
from the direction of an angel ; nay, Jesus himself must 
already before his death, and as Matthew too zealously 
adds, once more after the resurrection also, have en- 
joined this journey on the disciples. But the farther 
these narratives were propagated by tradition, the more 
must the difference between the locality of the resurrec- 
tion itself and that of the appearance of the risen one 
be allowed to fall out of sight as inconvenient ; and 
since the locality of the death was not transferable, the 
appearances were gradually placed in the same locality 



268 



HISTORY OF RATI0:N^ALIS^I. 



as the resurrection, — in Jei'usalem, which, as the more 
brilliant theatre and the seat of the first Christian 
church, was especially appropriate for them." ^ 

The ascension is claimed as a myth founded upon 
the Old Testament precedents of the translation of 
Enoch and the ascension of Elijah, and the pagan 
apotheosis of Hercules and Romulus. 

The last part of Strauss' work is a dissertation on 
tlie dogmatic import of the life of Jesus. Here this 
merciless critic tries to prove that, though the belief of 
the church concerning Christ be thus uprooted by the 
theory of myths, nothing truly valuable is destroyed. 
He declares it his purpose " to re establish dogmati- 
cally that which has been destroyed critically." He 
holds that all his criticism is purely independent of 
Christian faith ; for, " The supernatural birth of Chi-ist, 
his miracles, his resurrection and ascension, remain eter- 
nal truths, whatever doubts may be cast on their reality 
as historical facts." Thus, reliance is placed upon a 
diflPerence between the import of criticism and Christian 
faith — which subterfuge proved a broken reed when 
the masses read this mythical interpretation of the life 
of the Founder of Christianity. In vain did Strauss say, 
in the preface to his work, that it was not designed for 
the laity, and that, if they read it, it must be at their 
own hazard. It was published— and therefore the 
public had a right to demand an examination. Let him 
who writes an evil thought never be deceived by the 
opinion that only those will read it who cannot be in- 
jui'ed by it. " What is writ, is writ ; " and then it is 
too late to wish it " worthier." 

But the most remarkable feature of the work of 
Strauss yet remains to be traced. It was a compilation, 

^ Life of Jeaus, 852-3. 



GEOUPmG OF EATIOifALISTS. 



269 



and nothing more. Having ransacked every skeptical 
writer on the gospel history, he published their views 
at length in his Life of Jesus. He did not make many 
quotations. But the references at the foot of almost 
every page declare plainly enough the pains he took to 
put in force the incantation he had pronounced to all 
skeptical sprites : 

" Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray, 
Mingle, mingle, mingle ; ye that mingle may." 

No Kationalist escaped his notice. The English 
Naturalists reappeared with all their original pretensions. 
Bolingbroke, Voltaire, Lessing, Kant, De Maistre, and 
all the representatives of skeptical thought communed 
in friendly society, regardless alike of disparity in par- 
ticular opinions and of difference in the time when they 
flourished. On this very account M. Quinet infers the 
great popularity of the enterprise. Because it was a 
grouping of all heterodox doctrines of the person of 
Christ, the adherents of Rationalism saw whither their 
principles were leading them, and their opponents 
learned more of the desperate character of their foe than 
they had ever acquired from all other sources. It was 
a crystallization of the imputations and insults cast 
upon the gospels for more than seventy-five years. 
Then, for the first time, did the votaries of error, mass 
themselves. It was then, too, that the evangelical 
school were first able to count the number of their 
opponents. 

The scene before the publication of the lAfe of 
Jesus was quite different from the one presented sub- 
sequently. Formerly the Rationalists said what they 
chose about Christ, and they suffered little from their 
rashness. But immediately after Strauss had issued his 

19 



270 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



book, the attention of the church was profoundly at- 
tracted toward the consideration of the themes therein 
treated. The church seemed to say, " Strange, that I 
have given so little attention to this great pillar of 
Christian faith ; now I see what reward I am receivinci; 
for my neglect. The like shall never happen again. 
No, I will not only quench this firebrand, but I 
will hurl back upon my enemies enough destructive 
missiles to reduce them to a disorganized band of home- 
less fugitives." This resolution was not the work of 
idle excitement, and soon to be forgotten. The replies 
to the 1/ife of Jems constitute a theological literature. 
They were very numerous, and written from as many 
points of view as there had been theological schools 
since the dawn of the Reformation. The first rejoinder 
came from the most distinguished theologian of Wiir- 
temberg, Steudel of Tubingen. He was superintendent 
of the very school where Strauss was tutor, and 
his work was written bat a few weeks after the issue 
of the first volume of the Life of Jesus. It discussed 
the question whether Chiist's life rested on a histori- 
cal or mythical basis. The conclusion was an uncom- 
promising decision in favor of the former view. Steudel 
represented the old Lutheran orthodoxy. 

We now meet with the name of Hengstenberg, 
whom Providence designed to be an instrument of much 
good to the theology of the present day. He proved 
himself an unfiinching hero when he dealt his first 
blows from his professor's chair in Berlin. His utter- 
ances soon acquired great importance wherever the 
current controversies attracted attention. He was the 
leader of the young orthodox school and, in his newly- 
founded Evangelical Ohwch Gazette, he pictured his 
times in the language of desolation. His words were 



KEPLIES TO STRAUSS. 



271 



worthy of the dark days of Jeremiali. Adopting the 
exclamation of that prophet, he cried aloud, " Oh that 
my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, 
that I might weep day and night for the slain of the 
daughter of my people ! " Theologians, philosophers, 
and tradesmen seemed to him to be overwhelmed in 
skepticism. But he had a lion's heart, and fought stead- 
ily for the growth of the pure faith of the olden time. 
Nor did he grow tired of the warfare. He appeared to 
have been born upon the battle-field, within sound of 
drum and cannon. He was as much the warrior until his 
death as when he entered the lists against Strauss in 1869, 
thirty years before. His opinion of his great antagonist 
may be summed up in his own language. He says of 
him that, " He has the heart of a leviathan, which is as 
hard as a stone and as firm as the nether millstone ; he 
assails the Lord's Anointed with composure and cold- 
bloodedness ; and not a tear of pity flows from his 
eyes." 

Harless and Hofl&nan followed in spirited criticisms 
on the Life of Jesus. Tholuck next appeared upon the 
arena in his Credibility of the Gospel History, This 
production was somewhat declamatory in style, but 
that was no barrier to its utility. It attacked Strauss in 
the weakest spot, namely, in his deductions against the 
authenticity and apostolic origin of the gospels. 
Tholuck defines a miracle to be an event which appears 
contrary to the course of nature, and has a religious 
origin and aim. He allows that inspiration is not total 
but partial, and that it is but fair to concede to his op- 
ponent the presence of scriptural defects, such as mis- 
takes of memory, and errors in historical, chi'onological, 
and astronomical details. We must be content to know 
and feel that, in the Bible, we find a basis of inspiration 



272 HISTOEY OF EATIOTfALISM. 

• 

whicli is none the less substantial though suiTOunded 
by intruding weeds, or fragments of stone and mortar. 
But Tholuck's work is not a fair specimen of his writ- 
ings. Besides its literary defects, the author concedes 
much more to the Rationalists here than he is accus- 
tomed to do in his many superior publications. 

Again we meet with the revered name of Neander. 
His Life of Christ appeared in 1837. He published 
it not only as a reply to Strauss, but as an inde- 
pendent treatise upon the person of the Messiah. He 
announced himself as the mediator between those bitter 
partisans who, on the one side, would grant no rights 
to reason and, on the other, would leave no space for 
the exercise of feeling and faith. His work stands in 
the same relation to criticism which Schleieimacher's 
Discourses occupies to dogmas, and, as the latter appears 
sometimes to lean toward Rationalism, so do we find in 
the former traces of concession to the destructive method 
of criticism. Neander's work, despite everything which 
he grants to his enemies, was the transition-agent toward 
a purer comprehension of the life of Christ. While we 
lament that he interprets the early life of Christ as a 
fragment derived from an evangelical tradition ; that he 
believes the influence of demons in the gospel period sus- 
ceptible of a psychological explanation, that the miracu- 
lous feeding of the five thousand is but the multiplica- . 
tion and potentialization of substances already at hand, 
that the feeding of the four thousand is a mistaken 
account of the former, and that the changing of the 
water into wine at Cana of Galilee was nothing more 
than an increase of power in the water, as we find 
sometimes in mineral fluids, — ^granting these and all the 
other interpretations which IsTeander makes on the score 
of nature or myths, we must attach an importance to 



EEPLIES TO STRAUSS. 



27a 



liis Life of Christ second only to Ms History of the 
(Jhristian Church, One closes the reading of Ms ac- 
count of tlie Messiali witli a 23rofound impression that 
the author had a true conception of the divinity and 
authority of the Founder of Christianity. We cannot 
doubt his sympathy with those words of Pascal which 
he quoted frequently with exquisite pleasure : " En Jesus 
Christ toutes les contradictions sont accordees." 

Ullmann, in his treatise Historical or Ifythical, will 
not accept the alternative that the life of Christ is all 
mythical or all historical. He enumerates the philo- 
sophical myth, the historical myth, mythical history, 
and history with traditional parts. It is to the last of 
these that he assigns the gospej history. He propounds 
the dilemma, whether the church has conceived a poeti- 
cal Christ, or whether Christ is the real founder of the 
church ? He accepts the latter, and invokes all history 
in proof of his argument. Weisse, in his Gospel His- 
tory treated Philosophically and Critically^ dwells upon 
the relative claims of the four gospels. At least one of 
the gospels is original and the authority for the rest. 
This is Mark's ; and it is not mythical, but historical 
and worthy of credence. Matthew is a compilation of 
a later day ; and Luke and John are of still less impor- 
tance. But the miracles related by Mark are purely 
natural events. Christ's miraculous cures were owing 
to his physical powers. His body was a strong elec- 
tric battery, which, in his later life, lost its power of 
healing. Else he would have saved himself from death. 
His early life is unadulterated allegory. 

But there were numerous writers against Strauss, 
among whom may be mentioned Schweizer, Wilke, 
Schaller, and Dorner. Dorner's History of the Person 
of Christy 1839, was an attempt to show the totality of 



274 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



Cki'ist as a universal character. The human concep- 
tion of species is of a world of fragments, but in Christ 
we find them completely united. All single, individual 
l)rototypes coalesced in him. He is the World-Par- 
sonality. Bruno Bauer wrote his Criticism of the 
Synoptical Gospels in reply to Strauss, though a few 
years afterward he changed his ground entirely. His 
position in this work was as mediator between reason 
and revelation. He brought into the conflict concern- 
ing Strauss' Life of Jesus an element of heated argu- 
ment, and egotism, which ripened into his subsequent 
antagonism to the supernatural school. His entrance 
upon this field of strife may be comprehended by 
Schwartz's comparison of him with Carlstadt and 
Thomas Munzer, who had lived in the exciting period 
of the Reformation. 

An enumeration of the titles of the works which 
appeared at frequent intervals during the ten years 
succeeding the issue of Strauss' Life of Jesus indi- 
cates that toward the close of this period the contro- 
versy was directed more to the particular gospels than 
to the life of Christ as a unit. The many theories ad- 
vanced exceeded all the ordinary illustrations of literary 
fecundity and extravagance in the department of theol- 
ogy. There was no theologian of note who did not 
take part in the contest. Pastors of obscure provincial 
churches, who did not venture upon a complete life of 
the Messiah, felt themselves competent either to origi- 
nate a new view of one or more of the gospels, or to 
elaborate a borrowed one. The excitement was intense. 
There was no evidence of system in the rapid move 
ment. But now that the battle is over we read the 
philosophy of the whole conflict. Strauss, mthout any 
intention on his part, had shown the church of the nine- 



STRAUSS' NEW LIFE OF JESUS. 



275 



teenth century its weakness in failing to corajDrehend the 
importance of the evangelical history. The numerous 
replies indicated a hopeful attention to the neglected 
compendium of divine truth. The friends who rushed 
to his aid declared by their impetuosity that their cause 
•would have been better served had Strauss never 
penned a word about Christ. They saw their strong- 
hold in ruins, and looked with tearful eyes upon the 
future of their creed. The language which Strauss had 
applied to his excited opponents upon the appearance 
of his work became severely appropriate to his own ad- 
herents, after that production had been faithfully 
answered. " Their alarm," said he, " was like the 
screaming of frightened women on seeing one of their 
cooking utensils fall upon the floor." Granting the 
appositeness of the illustration, we must add that the 
alarm mentioned by the critic was of brief duration ; 
while that of the Kationalists and their adherents is 
like the long-standing despair of a circle of chemists, 
whose laboratory has been entered through a door left 
open by themselves, their carefully prepared combina- 
tions destroyed, and all their retorts and crucibles 
shattered into irreparable fragments. 

After a long absence of twenty-nine yearSj Straus8 
again appeared as the biographer of Christ. In his former 
work he wrote for the theological public, but the pub- 
lic were now assured that he had ever kept in mind a 
purpose to do for the masses W'hat he had achieved for 
critical minds. This later fruit of his pen is his Zife of 
Jesus Popularly Treated^ which, following close upon 
the issue of M. Kenan's work, appeared in 1864, in the 
form of a large octavo volume of more than six hundred 
pages. 

Strauss was induced to make his second work more 



276 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



popular than the first, because of the gross injuytice 
which the clergy had meted out to him in consequence 
of his former labors to establish the historical position 
of Christ. The " guild " of professional theologians are 
interested, he avers, in maintaining their own cause ; 
of course, they would not loose their hold very willingly. 
The only italicized sentence in his preface is a thrust 
against this class, whom time had in nowise led him to 
esteem : " He tvho wants to clear the parsons out of the 
church must first clear miracles out of religion^ The 
spirit of the introduction, in which the German writer 
is always expected to announce his opinions and give 
the historical reasons therefor, is not materially different 
from the lengthy one in his Life of Jesus, It is divided 
into three parts. The first contains the important at- 
tempts which have been made to write the life of Jesus 
and represent it in its true light. They have all been 
failures. Hess, Herder, Paulus, Schleiermacher, Hase, 
Neander, Ebrard, Weisse, Ewald, Keim, and Kenan 
must be content to lie in oblivion. Ren an has done 
very well for a Frenchman ; and as a work for France 
his book has some merit. The second treats of the gos- 
pels as sources of the life of Jesus. These accounts, not 
being authentic, are not of sufficient weight to be relied 
on. The third part contains certain explanations neces- 
sary to a proper appreciation of the remaining portion 
of the work. The following language indicates the au- 
thor's unchanged opinion on the mythical character of 
Christ : " We now know for a certainty at least, what 
Jesus was not and what he did not do, namely, nothing 
superhuman, nothing supernatural; it will, therefore, 
now be the more possible for us to so far trace out the 
suggestions of the Gospels touching the human and nat- 
ural in him as shall enable us to give at least some out- 
line of what he was and what he wanted to do." 



STRAUSS'* NEW LIFE OF JES13S. 



277 



The body of the book is substantially an attempt 
to show that Christ, as represented by the evangelists, 
is a mythical personage. Such a man lived ; but his 
life is not remarkable ; it is not what they described it ; 
and not very different from the common life of ordinal}' 
men. We have first^ an historical outline of the life of 
Jesus. Here Strauss makes himself, and not the Gospel 
narrators, the biographer of Christ. Secondly, we are 
furnished with the mythical history of Jesus in its 
origin and growth. The people were expecting some 
remarkable character, and they seized upon the first one 
who best answered their notions. John is as bad as his 
compeers. He is utterly untrustworthy. The only 
work of the New Testament from an immediate disciple 
is the Apocalypse of John. But this, too, is wholly 
unhistorical. Adopting the opinion of the radical Ra- 
tionalists, Strauss holds that miracles are impossible, 
and that if God were to operate against natural laws 
he would be operating against himself As a specimen 
of the method of criticism adopted to divest Christ's 
career of everything miraculous, we may instance 
Strauss' disposition of the resurrection of Christ. He 
confesses that, if he cannot show that this is mythologi- 
cal, his whole work has been written in vain. Christ 
did really die, but his resurrection was a vision. His 
disciples were excited, and believed they saw their 
Master reappear. But it was a great mistake on their 
part. It was only an hallucination. Paul had his 
visions ; so did Peter and John ; and so did Mary Mag 
(lalene, who was subject to nervous disorders. 

The second life of Jesus met with a cold reception. 
It appeared too late to catch the popular current of 
favor aroused by the earlier work, and its aim to win 
back a losing battle was soon a pronounced failure. The 



278 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



" People of the Eeformation," to whom it was flatteringly 
addressed, preferred a raore substantial theology. The 
tide had turned since 1835, and no man felt the power of 
the new current more keenly than David Frederic Strauss. 

The Rationalists, who gained nothing in the contro- 
versy concerning the first Life of Jesus by the tutor of 
Tubingen, were unfortunate in their organized, sys- 
tematic, and well-sustained effort to regain lost ground. 
We have reference to the labors of the Tubingen 
school. Ferdinand Christian Baur was its founder. 
His works are numerous, and may be divided into 
two classes : doct/rinal and critical. But there is con- 
sistency in all, — and, varied as his subjects of inves- 
tigation are, they centre in a common focus. Baur 
sought the solution of the agitated question in the apos- 
tolic history rather than in the life of Christ. The 
Christianity about which so much discussion is elicited, 
is, according to him, not a perfect and divine produc- 
tion, but only a vital force in process of development. 
This is the principle which underlies the multifarious • 
theories of the Tubingen school. In order to have a 
place where to stand and elucidate the theory, the 
epistles of Paul are chosen. But these are not all au- 
thentic. Hence a selection must be made, and, of 
course, only those must be chosen which are in harmony 
with the supposition that Christianity is but a dormant 
germ. Consequently, the Epistles to the Galatians, the 
Romans, and the Corinthians are favorites. They are 
made to dispel the darkness, and settle the question. 

In them Paul exposes the fact that there were two 
parties in the early church, the Pauline and the Petrine. 
They struggled for supremacy, and the conflict was a 
long one. Peter was a thorough Jew, — and his side 
predominated even after the death of the principal com- 



THE TUBmOEN SCHOOL. 



279 



batants. Judaism was the cradle of Christianity ; and 
the latter was only an earnest, restless, and reformatory 
branch of the former. But it was not an offshoot as 
yet, for Christianity was essentially Jewish all through 
its fii'st historic period. The canonical witings of the 
New Testament, which constitute the chief literature 
of the fii'st two centuries, are the literary monument of 
Christianity while it was yet undeveloped and unde- 
tached from Judaism. These writings are the mediating 
theology of those distant days. The Petrine party was 
very strong until the middle of the second centuiy, 
when it was obliged to yield to, or ratlier harmonize 
with, the Pauline. 

Many causes contributed to bring the two factions 
together. There was an absence of growth quite in- 
compatible with their respective strength. Alone, they 
were almost unable to brave the storm of persecution. 
Finally, for the sake of security and propagation, they 
laid down their weapons, and united under one banner. 
From this union came the subsequent growth of Chris- 
tianity. The canonical works so much revered by the 
chui'ch had been written in the interest of one or the 
other of the parties. Since the enmity has been de- 
stroyed, their literary productions must be consid- 
ered as "tendency writings." The church is, therefore, 
much mistaken in attaching importance to the Scriptures, 
for they were written for a time-serving end, and are 
quite unworthy of the value which we attach to them. 

A numerous circle of disciples clustered around 
Baur, and they enjoyed his leadership until his death, in 
1860. But the m^itings of both the master and his 
school were answered by the best theologians of Ger- 
nianyc Some of the greatest laurels worn by Thiersch, 
Dorner, Lechler, Lange, Schaff, Bleek, Hase, and Bun- 



Ill STORY OF RATIOr^ALISM. 



sen, were won in the contest with the Tubingen school ; 
and their united labors constitute a compendium of 
arguments which will not cease for centuries to be of 
inestimable value in the controversies of the church 
concerning Christ and the divine origin of Christianity. 

The labors of the Tubingen school and of Strauss 
are two parts of the same effort to destroy the divine 
basis of Christian faith. We do not impugn the private 
opinions of the contestants, but we must judge them 
by their fruits. They wrote and taught against those 
departments of truth which it is necessary to preserve 
intact if we would have Christianity continue a vital 
power of the soul and an aggressive principle in the 
world. Objections will still be urged against the Gospel 
histoiy, but it will still be blessed by the ceaseless 
oversight and unfailing ministrations of the Holy Spirit. 
Supposing the evangelical accounts to be purely hu- 
man, we have even then the highest embodiment of 
truth in the history of man. Herder says, " Have the 
fishermen of Galilee founded such a history ? Then 
blessed be their memory that they have founded it ! " 
With the conviction that the writers of the Scriptuies 
throughout were inspired men, and spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Spirit, we have a power demand- 
ed alike by the cravings of the soul and the as- 
pirations of the intellect. Blessed with this senti- 
ment, the individual and the church are thoroughly 
furnished unto every good work. 

From Germany we turn to France. The latter 
country has been the traditional purveyor of revolu- 
tionary material for the rest of the Continent. IsTo 
great popular movement west of the Rhine has been 
without its influence upon the eastern side. The July 
Revolution of 1830, which effected the overthrow of 



STEAUSS' SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE. 



281 



the Restoration represented by Charles X., set the Ger- 
man masses in commotion. They were henceforth rest- 
less, and ready, whenever occasion offered, to overturn 
the government and establish a national constitutional 
basis. The Rationalists were insurrectionary, and, the 
more rapid their decline in all religious sentiment the 
more decided was their opposition to constituted au- 
thorities. Strauss' Life of Jesus^ great in its influence 
upon theology, was equally powerful over the political 
mind. Every new publication which befriended infidel- 
ity was not without its support of faction and dis- 
content. 

In connection with the revolutionary tendency, 
Rationalism assumed also a more pantheistic, and sub- 
sequently a more atheistic form. The second important 
work of Strauss, his System of DocWine^ was even more 
adapted than his first to sap the foundations of faith 
and social security. It was the embodiment of all the 
worst features of the Hegelian philosophy. It was 
frank and bold in all its statements. No man could 
mistake a single utterance. In it doctrines are traced 
to their genetic development, and held to be the lux- 
uriant growth of the seeds of error. The truths of 
Christianity are surrounded by a halo to which it is no 
more entitled than the sagas of the Northmen. The 
old dogma was born of prejudice and error, hence the 
modern conception of it is sheer illusion. Faith and 
science are irreconcilable foes, for faith is the perversion, 
and science the development of human nature. Be- 
lieving and knowing, religion and philosophy, are born 
antagonists, and man can make no rapid progress if he 
grovel in the errors of faith. The personality of God 
is not that of the individual but of the universal. The 
pantheism of Spinoza is the best solution of God's 



282 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



existence ; " for," says Strauss, " God is not the per- 
sonal, but tlie infinite personifying of himself." 

The oracular responses of Feuerbach' were a step 
beyond even this skeptical usurpation. Religion is 
man s conduct to himself. Man, from time immemo- 
rial, has been buried in self-love, and become so far 
carried away by it that his religion is now one mon- 
strous hallucination. Religion springs not from his in- 
tellect but from his imagination. He wishes to get to 
heaven ; he desires to be comfortable ; therefore he be- 
lieves. He will put himself to no little trouble to pro- 
pitiate the favor of one whom he considers divine. 
Here is the mystery of all sacrifices. They are offered 
by all people from the mere inner force of abject ego- 
tism. God has no absolute existence whatever. Chris- 
tianity needs to be attacked historically. Its chief ele- 
ments are Judaism and paganism. That it is a collec- 
tion of absurdities, corruptions, and prejudices, can be 
perceived on its very face. But still man needs re- 
ligion, though he can only gain it either by rejecting 
Christianity altogether or purifying it from its thick 
envelope of dross. 

The Halle Year-Books, published 1838-42, were 
the principal organ of the new atheistic doctrines. 
They commenced with the laudation of Strauss, then 
passed over into the service of Feuerbach, and finally 
served the cause of Bruno Bauer and his fanatical ad- 
herents. They were under the chief editorship of Ruge ; 
and, being popular and youthful in style, they wielded 
an unbounded influence on the dissatisfied and skeptical 
classes. They broke through all the restraints of reli- 
gion, and propagated the wdldest perversions of Hegel's 
opinions. Though short-lived, they gained an au- 
thority not often enjoyed by a periodical. They were 

* la Wefien d£s Christenthums, Leipsic, 1841. 



RATIONALISTIC OEGANIZATIONS. 



283 



factious in the extreme, and became one of tlie principal 
agents in effecting tlie Revolution of 1848. They 
breathed mildew on everything stable in government 
and sacred in religion. But, Samson-like, they fell amid 
the ruin which they inflicted upon others. 

Quite a new form of Rationalism was then pre- 
sented in the popular <}onventions of the Protestant 
Friends. These individuals held that by a return to 
the spirit of the Reformation, Germany would be en- 
dowed with a new and living energy. But it must not 
be the Reformation as the church would have us under- 
stand it. It must be an impulse and spirit, not an out- 
ward attachment to form and compulsory authority. 
They were popularly called Friends of Light, and em- 
braced all the schools of Rationalists throughout the 
land. Their convocation was the parliament of German 
infidelity. Professing adherence to some of the doc- 
trines of Christianity, they so glossed them that even 
the atheist could be a member without violating his 
principles. 

Their founder was Pastor Uhlich, who, in company 
with sixteen friends, held the fii'st meeting at Gnadau, 
in July, 1841. The second convention met at Halle, 
and was numerously attended by clergymen, professors, 
and laymen of every class of society. The session at 
Kothen, in 1844, was a great popular assembly. It was 
addressed by Pastor Wislicenus, of Halle, whose lec- 
ture was subsequently issued as a reply to his antag- 
onists, under the title of Whether Scrijptures or Spirit ? ^ 
Not the letter, but the spirit, is the ground of true re- 
ligion. The spiiit permeates humanity, and hence there 
is no occasion for the observance of the law. The spiiit 
comes with its own law ; it is a law in itself. The 
Evangelical church stands safe only when resting upon 



284 HISTOEY OF KATIOI^ALISM. 

freedom. The glory of tlie clmrcli is the absolute free- 
dom of its members. The Scriptures are very good in 
their way. They are a witness of the faith of the first 
times, but were never intended for these cultivated 
days. The church is freed from the exterior law and 
elevated to the inner law of freedom. 

Guericke, the church historian, called attention to 
Wislicenus in the JEvangelical Church Gazette, Great 
surprise was manifested at once, and the sober mind of 
the nation became aroused to a sense of the danger now 
threatening the foundations of faith. In a short time 
the Saxon decree was issued against all assemblies 
which called in question the Augsburg Confession. 
The following month, August, 1845, the Prussian 
cabinet-order appeared, prohibiting all convocations of 
the Friends of Light. Protests appeared against Wis- 
licenus and his followers, which were followed by 
counter-protests signed indiscriminately by all classes. 

Another popular development of Rationalism oc- 
cuiTed in Konigsberg, in 1845. Pastor Rupp attacked 
the Athanasian symbol in his own pulpit, whereupon 
he was ejected by the consistory. He collected an in- 
dependent congregation ; and thus arose those Free 
Congregations, which contributed equally to the Ra- 
tionalistic and revolutionary movements. Appearing 
in other parts of Germany, they became a formidable 
opponent of the church. While they held that the 
Scriptures were their rule of faith in the unity of God, 
they threw off their authority and that of all symbols. 
They adopted baptism and the Lord's Supper, and pro- 
fessed allegiance to the civil power. But their influence 
was against the government, and their two sacraments 
were odious corruptions. Their form of baptism is 
enough to determine their religious sentiment : " I bap 



EEVOLUTIONAKY KATIONALISTS. 285 

m 

tize thee after the manner of the old apostolic baptism, 
that Jesus is the Christ ; I anoint thy head with water 
as a sign that thy soul remains pure, pure as the water 
that runs down the mountain side ; and as the water 
rises to heaven and then returns to the earth, so may 
you be continually mindful of your heavenly home." 
Their convocations were finally restricted by the civil 
authority. The supreme church council issued an ex- 
communicatory order against them; the police broke 
up their meetings ; and forty of the Free Congregations 
were closed in Prussia alone. 

The leaders of the Revolution of 1848 were the 
organizers of these popular independent movements. 
When the people had gained the upper hand of their 
rulers, their very first action was to select the destroyers 
of their faith as their political champions and represent- 
atives. It was, therefore, a great triumph for those fana- 
tical humanists to find themselves seated in the national 
parliaments of Frankfort and Berlin, and, wherever the 
revolution extended, to be the leaders of the excited 
masses. 

What could be expected from a revolution con- 
ducted by such men as Wislicenus, Blum, Uhlich, Baltz- 
er, Carl Schwartz and their adherents ? It was a total 
failure. And when the restoration was completed in 
1849, the reaction against Rationalism became so de- 
cided that the leaders had reason to tremble for their 
lives. The people were profoundly disgusted with a skep- 
ticism which could produce no better fruits than this 
one had matured. The indignation was even more in- 
tense than that toward French infidelity during the su- 
premacy of Napoleon over the German States. In the 
latter case the people were disgusted with the efforts of 
foreign skepticism, but in the former, they saw and felt 

20 



HISTORY OF RATIOI^ALISM. 



the sore evils of domestic Rationalism. Religious en^or 
had led them from peace and quiet into a dream-land. 
When the waking moment came, and the deception be- 
came apparent, the surprise at the delusion was over- 
whelming. 

The doctrinal form of Rationalism had been arrested 
by Schleiermacher and his noble band of followers. Its 
exegetical prestige had been destroyed by the replies to 
the lAfe of Jesus, And, as if to make its defeat as 
humiliating as possible, the last blow was self-inflicted. 
It was the Revolution of 1848, and its subsequent fail- 
ure, which annihilated the political strength of Ger- 
man Rationalism. There is a God in history. And 
though one generation may fail to perceive the bright- 
ness of his presence, the following one may be favored 
with the vision. No skeptic should forget that the real 
philosophy of history is the march of Providence 
through the ages. But the infidel is the worst reader 
of history. The light shines, but he turns away from 
it. Or, as Coleridge expi'esses it : 

The owlet Atheism, 
Sailing on obscure wings across the noon, 
Drops his blue-fringed lids, and shuts them close ; 
And, hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, 
Cries out, ' Where is it ? ' " 

There is a deep principle underlying not only the mis- 
carriage of the Revolution of 1848, but of all the popular 
movements toward independence which occur at a time 
when the people are involved in religious doubt. It is the 
spiritual status of a nation which commonly determines 
its love of law and order. A population adhering to 
an evangelical interpretation of the Scriptures can 
be forced to revolution only by evil and ambitious 
leaders, or by persistent oppression on the part of their 



SKEPTICISM NATURALLY REVOLUTIOI^ARY. 



2-87 



rulerg. Tlie tardy movement of tlie American Colonies 
toward their revolt against the British Government be- 
trayed a great unwillingness to inaugurate the struggle. 

i At the beginning, the conflict was not designed to be 
a revolution but only a judicious expedient for the im- 
provement of the colonial laws.^ Wise rulers, gov- 
erning for the best interests of their country, have gen- 
erally found that the most discontented of their sub- 

, jects are the most skeptical. Infidelity and error 

! have systematically arrayed themselves against civil 
authority. This infidelity does not always assume the 
same type ; for, while in Germany it was a general 
disbelief in the authenticity of the Scriptures, in 
France it was the rejection of the existence of God and 

j of the immortality of the soul. Even Robespierre tes- 
tified before the French National Convention of 1794, 
that " the idea of a supreme Being and of the immortality 
of the soul was a continual call to justice, and that no 
nation could succeed without the recognition of these 
truths." A revolution in Christendom, which has its 
basis in the skeptical nature of man, or in an anti-scrip- 
tural idea, may succeed for a while, but it must even- 
tually fail ; because, like a vessel without compass, chart, 
or star, it lacks the cardinal elements and safeguards of 
progress and security. 

' The hesitation to become independent was very decided, even as late 
as July, 1775.— Bancroft, History of the United States, Vol. 8: pp. 55, 56. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE EVANGELICAL SCHOOL. ITS OPINIONS AND SUCCESS- 
FUL WORK. 

There is a group of theologians who deserve to 
stand side by side with the immediate opponents of 
Strauss and his disciples. We mean the Mediation or 
Evangelical School. They represent the adv^ance of 
German theology from Rationalism to positive ortho- 
doxy. Beginning with able and irrefutable arguments 
for the Evangelists, they have extended their discussions 
to other important branches of sci-iptural defence. 

But, in order to portray the character of the Evan- 
gelical School, we shall need to dwell upon certain 
members in particular.' 

Not least in honor and achievement was Karl 
Ullmann. He contributed to the Studien und Kritiken^ 
a quarterly established by himself and Umbreit, an 
article on the sinlessness of Christ, which he subsequent- 
ly elaborated into a volume. One of the most original , 

^ For accounts of the later theologians of Germany, consult Schaff, 
Germany: Its Universities, Theology and Religion. Phila., 1857. Also, 
Schwarz, Geschiclite der Neuesten Theologie, Leipzig, Dritte Ausgahe, 18G4 ; 
Dorner, History of Protestant Theology, 2 vols., Edinb., 1871; Matheson, 
Aids to the Study of German Theology, 3d ed., Edinb. and N. Y., 1877; 
and Lichtenberger, History of German Theology in the Nineteerdh Century, 
Edinb. and K Y., 1889. 



KARL ULLMANN. 



289 



of his productions is, his Essence of CJiristianity^ which 
placed " him in the centre of the Mediation theology." 
He holds with Schleiermacher, that Christianity is not as 
much doctrine as vitality, and that it possesses the cre- 
ative and organizing power of religion. Christianity is 
both divine and human ; divine in its origin and essence, 
but human in its development and fulfillment. With- 
out the person of Christ to stand in the very focus of 
Christianity, the latter becomes void and no more than 
any moral religion. We can have no proper conception 
of Christianity apart from its founder, for its whole es- 
sence exists in him. Christianity is Christ developing 
himself in humanity. Christ is God-man in so far as he 
represents in his own person the perfect unity and in- 
terpenetration of the human and divine. Christianity 
is that religion which neither deifies nor destroys nature. 
Without considering it essential to prove the facts of 
Christ's life, Ullmann showed that Christ, in the divine 
character which we attach to him, was necessary to 
Christianity just as the pillars are to the superincum- 
bent edifice. The efifect of this argument was most sal- 
utary, for it was so well timed that it could not be other- 
wise. There were two things to be established concern- 
ing Christ. One was the verity of the Gospel accounts 
of him ; the other was Christ as a necessity for man's 
faith, the world's progress, and human salvation. The 
former having been treated by other hands, Ullmann un- 
dertook the latter and triumphed. He was one of the 
most pleasing of the German theologians. Partaking 
of the warm southern temperament — for he was a Ba- 
varian by birth — he wrote in that easy, natural, and 
earnest style which renders him a popular writer not only 
in his own language but when translated into foreign 
tongues. 



290 



HISTORY OF RATIOI^ALISM. 



We find in Dorner one of the most acute speculative 
theologians produced by the later Protestant church. 
His style is as complex as Ullmann's is simple. It is amu- 
sing that, in one place, he even enters into a justification 
of his technical and abstruse writing. Applying him- 
self to dogmatic investigations, the fruit of his labor was 
his Doctrine of the Person of Christ Christianity was 
the world's great want, and all the religions of the nat- 
ural man could not supply its place. But Christianity 
is vague unless the question be settled concerning the 
person of Christ. Here is the battle-ground where 
Christianity and reason must meet and decide the 
great issue. Hence Dorner passes by the personal 
ministry and history of Christ on earth and attempts 
the proper mode of construing his person. The Per- 
son of Christ is, in the trials and triumphs of individ- 
uals and the church, the central point of the Christian 
religion. He is the perfect Lawgiver, and. also the 
Judge of the world. He controls the univei'se. Here 
he communicates the forgiveness of sins and the Holy 
Ghost, and in heaven, eternal felicity. The happiness 
of heaven is formed by perfect fellowship with his per- 
son. He has left his followers only in appearance, for, 
wherever two or three are assembled in his name, there 
he is in the midst of them. He is with his own always, 
even to the end of the world. To know Christ in his 
nearness belongs to the Christian worship ; and this in- 
stitution is appointed for the church as the highest 
means for the enjoyment of his nearness.^ 

According to Dorner, heathendom longed for the 
apotheosis of human nature. Judaism sought the fulfill- 
ment of the revelation not completed by the law, and 

^Doctrine of Person of Christ (Clark's Foreign Theological Library, 
VI— VIII). Dorner wrote later A System of Christian Doctrine. 



DOE^IEE'S SINLESSNESS OF CHRIST. 291 



strained after the love of God as tlie consummation of 
the holy law. All these wants are met in Christ. He 
is the innermost revelation of the mystery, and the full- 
est condescension of God. For God has in Christ be- 
come man. Here is the point of unity between God and 
the world. But Christ did not appear in order to be the 
Son of God, as if this were the ultimate end ; but the 
ultimate end was the glorifying of man, and therewith 
of God, in and through him. He is officially God's 
son.-^ 

Was Christ possessed of sinless perfection ? In both 
a physical and ethical point of view he was not abso- 
lutely complete from the first. He learned obediecce. 
He greio in favor, not only with men but with God. 
Growth points backward to previous deficiency, or, 
what is the same thing, forward to the absolute goal 
which the reality approaches only by degrees. But de- 
ficiency in entire perfection is not sinfulness, for then 
all real humanity and sinfulness would be identical. 
Christ's temptations are explainable on this wise : he 
had a real moral task, not only external to himself, 
but in himself, which could not be solved at the begin- 
ning if he was to be like us. There was no disorder in 
him, but there were disorder and sin without him, 
which occasioned him the contests, temptations, and suf- 
ferings that filled his official life. These later conflicts 
were only assigned him because he remained the pure 
One, and had become morally harmonious in the midst 
of moral anarchy. But they were still inward and per- 
sonal struggles ; for he was to introduce the power of 
his harmony and of his sufferings, in order to overcome 
the disharmony in the world. He, the righteous one, 
must, by suffering, take upon himself disorder and dis- 

* Doctrine of Person of Christy Vol. 1, pp. 80-81. 



292 



HISTORY OF Rationalism. 



harmony, must live through it and taste it, in order to 
establish a power which is not only harmonious in itself, 
but so potent in harmony as to take the disharmony into 
itself, master it, and transform it into harmony. Christ 
was perfect man in growth and progress, in his 
temptations and conflicts, but without any historical 
trace of a flaw or blemish in his life. He was in all 
points made like us, without being necessitated to be- 
come like us as sinners. For sin is the negation of the 
truly human. He laid claim to no exceptional law for 
himself as a privileged individual, but subjected himself 
to the universal human moral law. With this he was 
satisfied, and he fulfilled it in its purity, depth, and com- 
pleteness. He knew nothing of a super-moral religious 
genius, and would have nothing to do with it. His reli- 
gion is moral ; his morality, religion.^ 

The name with which we are most familiar is the 
devout and laborious Tholuck. He generally takes 
higher ground than many of the Mediation-theologians. 
But he is sometimes at variance with evangelical senti- 
ment. Inspiration, according to him, is not real and to- 
tal, but only partial, and is to be determined in reference 
to the truths necessary to salvation. While there are 
many mistakes of memory, false citations, errors in his- 
torical, chronological, geographical, and astronomical 
detail, these need not depreciate our general estimate of 
inspiration. The Scriptures have a kernel and a shell. 
Upon the former there is the positive and direct impress 
of the Holy Spirit ; but upon the latter it is indirect 
and relative. 

In merely stating Tholuck's definitions, however, we 
do not measure out justice to him. He must not be 
tested by any special department of labor, but by the 

* American Presb. and Theolog. Reoiew, January, 1863. 



THOLUCK AS AN AUTHOE. 



293 



spirit and totality of his service. In this light he is a 
remarkable personage, and his work is entitled to our 
highest eulogium. With him, Christ is not merely a 
person to be apprehended by the mind, but a Saviour to 
be received into the heart and henceforth to be a living 
power of the soul. He must be accepted by Christian 
faith, and the heart must undergo the transforming 
power of his Spirit. Without this preparation, all prog- 
ress in science is but the worship of nature, and man, 
at the close of life, looks back upon a path of error 
and forth into a world of darkness. 

" Tholuck has this characteristic," says one of his 
countrymen, he cannot be classified ; he belongs to no 
paii:icu]ar theological direction, because he belongs to 
all." This estimate is strictly true. He gained his 
greenest laurels in exegesis; and his commentaries on 
the Psalms, the Sermon on the Mount, the Gospel of 
John, and the Epistles to the Romans and Hebrews, have 
already their high place in the theological libraries of 
English and American divines. But he asked himself 
the question, What can I do to lessen the hold which 
Rationalism has upon my country?" And he has given 
the answer by his life-career. All his productions 
centre in that thought, and it is not the least of his 
service that he wrote sketches of the old Reforma- 
tion theologians, as an incentive to the restoration of 
their spirit. It is not easy to estimate the benefit 
which his Sin and Hedeniptton has conferred upon the 
young men of Germany. The Baron von Kottwitz is 
the real personage represented by the patriarch. Let 
VIS liear this venerable saint as he stands upon the bor- 
der of the gi'ave and anticipates a bright futui'e for his 
loved church and country. His words are the key to 
Tholuck's life, and reveal the bright hope which burned 



204 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



witllin him always after tlieday when lie was welcomed 
to Halle by the hisses and threats of the Rationalists. 

The aged man says : " The greater the crisis the 
more needfiil is it to unite the wisdom of the serpent 
with the simplicity of the dove. I therefore address 
you as such an one who, perhaps, will soon be engaged 
at the university as one of the instruments employed 
by God in that important period. The work of God's 
spirit is greater than either you or the majority can 
estimate. A o-reat resurrection mornino; has dawned. 
Hundreds of youths on all sides have been awakened 
by the Spirit of God. Everywhere true believers are 
coming into closer union. Science herself is becoming 
again the handmaid and friend of the Crucified. Civil 
governments, also, though in part still hostile to this 
great moral revolution from a dread of its producing 
political commotions, are many of them favorable ; and 
where they are not, the conflicting energy of the light 
is so much the stronger. Many enlightened preachers 
already proclaim the gospel in its power ; many who 
are still in obscurity will come forward. I see the 
dawn ; the day itself I shall behold not here, but from 
a higher place. You will live to witness it below. 
Despise not the words of a gray-headed old man, who 
would give you, with true affection, a few hints relative 
to this great day. 

" The more divine a power is, the more to be dep- 
recated is its perversion. "When those last times are 
spoken of in Scripture, in which the gospel shall be 
spread over the whole world, it is declared that the 
truth will not only have to contend with the propor- 
tionably more violent counterworking of the enemy, but 
also with a great measure ol' delusion and error within 
the kingdom of light. Such is the course of things 



A PROPHECY FEOM THOLUCK. 295 

that every trutli has its shadow ; and the greatest truth 
is attended by the greatest shadow. Above all things 
take care that the tempter do not introduce his craft 
into the congregation of the faithful. There will be 
those for whom the simple gospel will not suffice. 
"When a man has experienced the forgiveness of his sins, 
and has for a little while enjoyed the happiness of that 
mercy, it not unfrequently appears to his evil and in- 
constant heart too humiliating a condition to be con- 
stantly receiving grace for grace. There is no other 
radical cure for a proud, self-willed heart than every 
day and every hour to repeat that act by which we 
first came to Christ. Pray that you may have more of 
that childlike spirit which regards the grace of your 
Lord as a perennial fountain of life. Especially avoid 
the error of those who seek life for the sake of light, 
who would make religion a mere stepping-stone to in- 
tellectual superiority. Such persons will never attain to 
a vital apprehension of divine things ; for our God is a 
jealous God, and will be loved by us for his own sake. 
The intellectual power, the mental enlargement arising 
from converse with the great objects of faith, is always 
to be regarded as a secondary and supplementary 
benefit to that which it is the immediate object of the 
gospel to bestow. Despise not human greatness or 
talent or ability of any kind, but beware lest you over- 
value it. I see a time coming — indeed it is already at 
hand — in which gifted men will lift up their voices for 
the truth ; but woe to the times in which admiration 
and applause of the speaker shall be substituted for 
laying to heart the truth which he delivers ! Perhaps 
in the next generation there will be no one in some 
parts of Germany who will not wish to be called a 
Christian. Learn to distinguish the spirits. The sum 
of my exhortations is humility and love 1 " 



296 



HISTORY OF liATlONALIS.^r. 



The most poetical and not the least penetrating of 
the evangelical school was Lange, once a farmer, but 
later a laborious professor at Bonn. How deeply he 
had imbibed the spirit of the Scriptures may be seen 
in the Bible Worh^ which Dr. Philip SchafF edited for 
the use of the American public. Keligion, according 
to Lange, is subjectively a life-emotion of the human 
nature, and objectively a revelation of God. In the 
former case it may be termed natural, in the latter, 
revealed. The world is not a mere world, but a self- 
revelation of God in its fullest import. Creation is not 
simply creation, but a divine testimony. Nature is not 
nature alone, but a seed of life proceeding from the 
spirit and returning to the spirit. The proof of the true 
human conception of God, as well as of man, is their 
harmonious union in the conception of the God-man. 
This is the centre of all doctrine. The world is a pro- 
gressive succession, developing the divine germ. His- 
tory unites itself to revelation as a second creation, ele- 
vating man to continuous growth. God's providential 
changes unite with the active faith of man, and they do 
not constitute an isolated act of God, but a great his- 
torical combination of revelations. They rise gradually 
and find their completion in the God-man. 

Miracles are the penetration of the absolute or new 
human-divine life principle into the sphere of the old 
natural human life. The revelation of the divine-human 
in Christ is the absolute miracle which manifests itself 
in a succession of single miracles. A miracle is super- 
natural and contrary to nature only in reference to the 
old life, and, in its highest meaning, is in conformity to 
a higher law. Therefore, miracles are the natural law 
of all natural laws taken together. Inspiration is in 
consonance with miracle ; and there is a dissimilarity 



NITZSCH AND TWESTEN. 



291 



of inspiration observable in tlie Scriptures. Tlie Old 
and New Testaments are very different, so also are the 
canonical and hagiographical writings. The word of 
God is contained in the Scriptures, and is there brought 
into living unity and operation with the mind of man. 
This union does not exclude human imperfections. But 
such imperfections are of a superficial character, and in 
no wise affect the kernel and religious centre of the 
Bible.^ 

Among the most prominent divines in the depart- 
ment of dogmatical theology were Nitzsch and Tvvesten. 
The latter was Schleiermacher's successor at Berlin. 
Bright hopes were placed on him, but he was a tardy 
author, and did not possess the brilliant gifts of his great 
prototype. Yet he was a clear and profound thinkei-, 
and, with a few points of exception, thoroughly evan- 
gelical. He was an ardent admirer of the old Lutheran 
theology, and, like his predecessor, placed religion in 
feeling and dependence instead of in knowledge. 

Nitzsch was also a disciple of Schleiermacher, and his 
doctrinal system bears distinct traces of the master's 
instructions. But it is a bold work, and has inflicted 
great mischief upon the doctrinal claims of the later 
Rationalists, who betook themselves to theory after 
their exegesis and history had failed them. The scope 
of his system is broad and clear. He commences by 
assigning Christian doctrine its proper place in theo- 
logical study, a definition of the general idea of Chris- 
tianity, a statement of the laws by which a knowledge 
of Christianity is acquired, and a history of the Chris- 
tian system and its exhibition in the purest form. The 
three parts constituting the substance of Nitzsch's opin- 
ions are The Good^ the Bad^ and Salvation, Chris- 

^ Dogmatik^ 1849. 



298 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



tianity is a determinate mode of man's life, and is so 
determined by conscious dependence on God, but in no 
wise by knowledge, conception, action, or the will. 
Religion does not arise from experience and sensation, 
but from an original self-consciousness. There is an 
intimate connection between doctrine and practict', 
truth and holiness. Redemption is not merely a resto- 
ration, nor a mere perfected creation, but one through 
the other. It is related to an original good, apart from 
which the bad itself would have no place, opportunity 
for existence, or continuance; since redemption is so 
closely connected with evil. Moreover, the good — in 
which evil has found opportunities for manifestation — • 
cannot be the same which caused redemption. Hence, 
we safely presume the existence of an eternal God. This 
being is the foundation of Christian faith and life. A 
belief in the Redeemer cannot be separated from that in 
the Creator. But it is through a knowledge of the Re- 
deemer that the Creator, with all his work, first becomes 
know^ in his perfect goodness and truth. The doctrine 
of salvation is more closely related to the degenerated 
condition of the world than to the original good, or to 
the right conduct of the creatui*e toward God. Evil 
became possible wdth the creation of personality, though 
without being necessary. But it has become so very 
real that the heavenly Adam must needs come into the 
world to destroy the works of the devil, — which are sin 
and death, — and to renew the communion of the crea- 
tion with the Creator. The effectuating cause of man's 
permitting himself to be seduced into sin was not any 
fixed purpose or predestination of God, but man's per- 
fect moral freedom. He chose the evil, and hence he 
inherits sin with all its dire results. Since then, sin has 
become a bias and righteousness requires an efibrt for 



EOTHE. 



299 



its performance. But man is accessible to divine legis- 
lation by being tlie subject of fear, shame, and punish- 
ment. The church is an abiding testimony and a con- 
tinued means for the redemptive ministry of ChTist. It 
is the congregation of the sanctified/ 

From these two useful professors in Berlin we 
pass southward to Heidelberg, and delay a moment 
with the celebrated Rothe. In his work on the 
Primitive Chmxh he endeavors to explain the philos- 
ophy of the whole ecclesiastical system. He views the 
elements of the church in solution, and thence tries to 
deduce general principles. He advances the view, with 
Coleridge and Arnold, that the church will not be 
complete until absorbed in the state. Its present sep- 
arate condition is provisional, and can only last during 
the time that Christianity is being developed. This 
period may be of long duration, but the development 
of our race is ever progressing. The church must exist 
on its own basis during the interval. Human deeds of 
righteousness tend toward the perfection of the church. 
Then will religion permeate the world. Yet it will not 
exist as something separate, but all-penetrative. It will 
not be absolutely divine, but superlatively human. 
Thus vrill the dualism of the human and divine, the 
religious and the moral, be destroyed. When the day 
of ecclesiastical perfection — which is really civil perfec- 
tion — arrives, the state will perform the functions of 
the church. It will exercise chui'cli discipline for the 
purpose of religious and moral training. The divergence 
between religious and worldly science will be abrogated, 
and there will be no longer any conflict between the 
worship of God and nature. It is plain that these 

^ System of Christian Doctrine. Translated by Montgomery and Hen- 
nen. Clark's Library, Edinburgh, 1849. 



300 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



views are based upon those of Hegel, who said of the 
state, that " it is the totality of moral purposes." ^ 

The ethical system of Rothe is one of the most 
original and profound pieces of devout and reverent 
speculation in the entire range of theological literature. 
It has been termed "a work of ai*t as well as of science; 
and the several stones of the ethical system are reared 
up here into a magnificent gothic cathedral by the skill 
of a master architect." It is based on the unity and 
identity of religion and morality. Here, as in the 
theory of the relations of church and state, the Hegelian 
philosophy is very perceptible. God's love is mani- 
fested in creation, and there existed the necessity of his 
creative activity in order to communicate himself to 
others. Hence, God's love is not a mere attribute, but 
one of the necessary conditions of his being. Creation 
is a necessary act of God. God is as truly creator as 
he is benevolent. There is, therefore, a correlation of 
God and the world. There is no God without also the 
world. God's creative activity is still continued by his 
providential movements, and these are the steps of 
man's develojDment. Man's complete character is in 
some measure dependent on his discipline, and sin is 
the necessary ordeal or process through which he must 
pass in order to arrive at the highest development.^ 

Rothe, in 1863, published a volume of his essays, 
entitled A Contribution to Dogmatic Theology. It 
is occupied mostly with the consideration of the 
Scriptures. The author thus states his opinion : "The 
matters I handle in this volume inevitably place me in 
a most unfavorable position. The question is one in 
which I find myself in direct conflict with both the 
leading parties in the theology of the present day. lly 

^ Die Anfdnge der Christlichen KircJie und Hirer Verfassung^ 1837. 
^-fi'^^a— 1845-1848. 



kothe's dogmatics. 



301 



I mode of regarding Holy Scripture runs directly counter 
to modern orthodoxy. My supernaturalism and firm 
belief in revelation are no less opposed to theological 
liberalism. This very antagonism encourages me to 
hope that I may be found to have spoken a word in 
season. On the one hand, it is my belief that the con- 
sciousness of the age will never thoroughly reassimilate 
Christianity till it can take coui'age to believe again in 
mii'acle and supernatural influence. I am no less firmly 
convinced, on the other hand, that miracle and super- 
natural influence will never find their way into the 
conscious belief of Christians in the form in which 
church-theology has allowed those ideas to be inocu- 
lated into it. That which is passed can never be re- 
called to life after history has once buried it. But 
there are not a few persons who long for the reconcilia- 
tion of the old and the new. These are the persons to 
whom I would gladly be usefal according to my small 
measure." ^ 

Rothe regards the supernatm'al interference of the 
Deity in the stream of human history as a part of that 
history. It is not enough that the divine interposition 
has incorporated itself with the traditions of the race ; 
it must be fixed in a written narrative. Xot only must 
there be a book or writing, but that book must be of an 
historical character. As the revelation did not consist 
in doctrines, so the doctrine we require is not a creed 
01 compend of doctrines. Besides vouching the facts, 
the doctrines must represent them in a vivid manner ; 
that is, the writing must be such as can stand for long 
posterior generations in the place of the original revela- 
tion, and place us in the imraediate personal experience 
of revelation. It is part of the extraordinary operation 

^ Ethil\ Preface^ p. 6. 

21 



302 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



of the Deity to provide such a writing. The document 
itself, as well as the facts it relates, are supernaturally 
produced. What the divine influences in the world are 
to its moral and human laws, the record of those influ- 
ences is to ordinary narrative. The Bible is therefore 
what the old Protestant theology styled it, " The Woid 
of God " ; but in a very different sense. It was meant 
by that phrase that the books, as we have them, were 
dictated by God in such a way that the sacred penmen 
contributed nothing but the letter-marks upon the 
paper. The dogma of inspiration current in the six- 
teenth century is not accepted. The inspiration which 
Rothe attributes to the Bible is the same by which he 
explains that peculiar impression received by the pious 
soul from its study of the book. It is the constant ex- 
perience of the evangelical Christian that in his Bible 
he possesses a direct means of grace. Scripture is to 
him an active medium of the saving work of God in his 
soul, and supernatural forces move within it. The 
Bible stands alone in all literature as this incarnation 
of a fresh, full, life-giving religious spirit. But the pe- 
culiar influence which it exercises upon minds indicates 
not merely a divine element in its pages, but a whole, 
complex, and sound human spirit side by side with that 
divine element ; the two not crossing or interfering with 
each other, but forming together a unity of living truth. 
The books of the Bible must be regarded as the general 
product of the minds of their human authors. These 
authors have had their moments of inspiration, to which 
they owe much of the religious experience they have 
embalmed in their writings. But inspiration was not 
the normal condition of their minds, nor were their 
books written during the moments of such inspiration. 
Again, not every part of the Bible is an equally full and 



schenkel's rationalism. 



303 



intense expression of this spiritual mind of the writer. 
We must assume degrees of inspiration according with 
the nature of the contents, and with their nearer or re- 
moter bearing on the proper matter of the prophetical 
utterances.^ 

Passing over the names of Julius Muller, Ebrard, 
Havemick, Hundeshagen, Umbreit, Gieseler, Olshaus- 
en, Hagenbach, and Jacobi, we pause at Schenkel and 
Hengstenberg. 

Schenkel was, for a time, a recognized evangel- 
ical theologian. The author of the Essence of Protest- 
antism^ he took his stand as an able defender of ortho- 
doxy ; and there was every reason to hope that he would 
be one of the chief agents in the final overthrow of Ra- 
tionalism. As a proof of the high estimate placed upon 
his opinions, when the Baden government and church 
consistory were calling their strongest orthodox theo- 
logians into the various posts of prominence, after the 
Revolution of 1848, Schenkel was declared counselor, 
and director of the theological seminary of Heidelberg. 
From that time onward for fifteen years his evangel- 
ical sentiments were not questioned. But, when his 
Picture of the Character of Jesus appeared, the surprise 
was great throughout Germany. It seemed incredible 
that he could write a work in such direct antagonism 
to all his previous views. People were unwilling to 
censure it at fii^t ; the Rationalists rejoicing at the great 
accession, and the orthodox retaining too much respect 
for the author's past services to bestow harsh criticism 
upon him. But a book of importance need not wait 
long in Germany upon the publisher's shelf before it is 
weighed and assigned its proper position in literatui*e. 
In due time the critics came forward, sifted its contents, 

^ Westminster Eeview^ J^lj? 1863. 



304 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



and decided it to be skeptical. The theological periodi- 
cals abounded in lengthy reviews of it. Schenkel 
seemed as much astounded as any one else at the public 
judgment. He answered the charges against his ortho- 
doxy by stoutly denying that he had turned Kationalist. 
He held that his critics were so obtuse that they could 
not understand him ; and that if he were accused of 
heterodoxy it was their blunder and not his guilt. But 
it is needless to say that Schenkel made a poor case for 
himself. His book stood against him. The miracles 
of Christ receive his severe comment. They are, in his 
opinion, the dark shade which has been cast upon the 
bright splendor of the public activity of Jesus. It was 
a matter of course that the idea of a life like that of the 
Redeemer should, soon after his death, be veiled by a 
multitude of tales. His disciples endeavored to repre- 
sent his internal wonderful power of personal glory and 
greatness by the external miraculous occurrences which 
they ascribed to him. Their deeply excited imagina- 
tion magnified the great hero whom they had loved and 
admired. Their enthusiastic religious fancy did him 
homage by ascribing to him the performance of miracles. 
The gift of working miracles was merely the endow- 
ment of nature. For Jesus was favored with the highest 
ability and rarest moral power, by which he worked 
beneficially upon sufferers and took them by surprise. 
Schenkel further rejects and denies the faith in Christ's 
personal and bodily resun'ection from the dead, and his 
continuation of life in the glory of the Father. But he 
holds that Christ lives in his community, in which are 
his home and temple. The living Christ is the spirit 
of his community. 

After the position of Schenkel's work had been 
fairly decided, numerous remonstrances appeared against 



HENGSTENBEEG. 



305 



it from tlie orthodox theologians. One hundred and 
eighteen clergymen sent in a formal protest to the con- 
sistory for his removal from his important office as 
director of the seminary. But the ecclesiastical council 
'decided in favor of his continuance in discharge of his 
functions. They extenuated themselves by saying that 
the free examination of the Scriptures is the privilege 
of Protestant Christians. The Rationalists claimed 
the result as one of the most signal of their later 
victories. 

Hengstenberg, the strongest and most heroic of the 
later opponents of Rationalism, commenced very early 
in life as both author and professor. In 1828, at the 
age of twenty-six, he was elected professor of Old 
Testament exegesis at Berlin. He was chosen to that 
important position Avith a view to counteract the pre- 
vailing Rationalism, and, if possible, to raise up a new 
school of earnest evangelical men. He was by no means 
without success. Having never swerved from his first 
avowed position, his antipathy to all kinds of skep- 
ticism was so sincei'e and active that he combated it 
without any regard to moderation or consequences. 

Of all the members of the Evangelical school he 
took the highest rank as controversialist, and defender 
of the Old Testament. He saw that it was the Old 
Testament which the Rationalists had assailed most 
vigorously, and that unless they were met upon their 
own ground they would claim the mastery of the field. 
Hence, he made the Pentateuch, Daniel, and the second 
part of the prophecy of Isaiah the theme of his de- 
fence * — for it was these that the Rationalists had long 
claimed as their collateral evidence. At that very time 
there was almost no orthodox theologian in Germany 

* Beitrd^e zur Einleitung in das alte Testamente. Drei Bande, 1831-39. 



30(5 



mSTOEY OF KATIONALISM. 



who liad confidence enough to contend foi- them. But 
the greatest apologetic achievement of Hengstenberg 
was his christological work.^ Here he develops his 
theory that the Messianic prophecies extend through 
the entire Old Testament ; that they can be traced 
in Genesis ; that they increase in clearness as the scrip- 
tural history advances ; that they become perfectly lucid 
in the later prophets ; and that they are finally fulfilled 
in the Messiah himself. 

But it was not by theological lectures or books that 
Hengstenberg achieved his greatest triumphs over Ra- 
tionalism and Pantheism. Clearly perceiving the power 
of the periodical press, he commenced the publication 
of the Evangelical Church Gazette^ which by its fear- 
less spirit and marked talent soon became the chief 
theological journal of Germany. Its aim was not only 
to overthrow skepticism but everything which min- 
istered to its support. Its contributors have been 
among the leading men of the country, among whom 
we find such names as Otto von Gerlach, Professors Leo 
and Huber, and Doctors Goschel, Vilmai-, Stahl, Tho- 
luck and Lange. The Gazette has changed its tone ac- 
cording to the new demands of the times, but it has 
never abated its deadly antagonism to Rationalism. It 
has betrayed an increasing High Church tendency, es- 
pecially since 1840. The editor, true to his earnest 
nature, believed that no moderate and conciliatory 
spirit was capable of successfully resisting the great 
enemies of the church. The relief which he relied 
upon was in fighting them with the heroic ardor of 
a crusader. Hence he claimed that an elevation of 
ecclesiastical powder was necessary to meet the demand ; 
and therefore he boldly stood as the High Church 

' Christologie. Drei Bande, 1829-35. 



EVANGELICAL JOUENALS. 



307 



champion of Protestant German}'. For tliis course he 
received quite as many and bitter maledictions as were 
visited upon Pusey of England, but he was one of those 
men who care as little for the curses of foes as for the 
adulations of friends. 

There have been other theological journals which 
have contributed greatly to the spread of vital Christi- 
anity in Germany.^ They do not possess, on the one 
hand, the popular character of many of our religious 
papers, nor, on the other, do they deal so much in ab- 
struse theological questions as to preclude them from 
large circles of readers. They possess popular adapta- 
tion without yielding to the demand for light religious 
reading. Many of their contributions having been 
written by far-sighted laymen, they have gained access 
to minds usually occupied in the absorbing interests of 
commercial and political life. The whole Protestant 
church owes a debt of profound gratitude to the men 
who commenced these enterprises and have zealously sus- 
tained them through the social changes which have con- 
vulsed Germany. 

But in our estimate of renewed religious life we 
must not overlook the improved condition of the in- 
struction now imparted in the gymnasia and universi- 
ties. ^ Besides the names we have already mentioned 
there were professors and instructors of all grades who 
had drunk deeply of the spirit of the Gospel, and, 

^ Besides the Evangelical Church Gazette^ semi-weekly, by Hengsten- 
berg, established 1827, are the Studien und Kritilcen, by Ullmanii and 
Umbreit, 1828 ; the Deutsche Zeitschrift fur christliche Wissenschaff, by 
Neauder, Nitzsch, and Muller, 1850 ; and the JahrNicher fur Deutsche 
Theologie, by Liebner, Dorner, and others, 1856. 

^An invaluable account of the common and higher Schools of Ger- 
many is furnished in Horace Mann's Seventh An?iual Report^ published in 
the Common School Journal of Boston, under the title of Education in 
Euro2Je, 1844. 



308 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



having been taught and encouraged by such men ns 
Hengstenberg and Tlioluck, became strong and ardent 
for future victory. Young men have passed through 
their student life in Halle, Heidelberg, and Berlin, and 
are now scattered throughout the land, sowing the 
seeds of ti iith, and urging the people to espouse the 
good cause. Others are preparing to take their places 
when these are no more. The spirit of theological in- 
struction has undergone such a thorough transformation 
that the old Rationalism which had so long jirevailed 
has now scarcely even an echo of its earlier advocates, 
such as Semler and Paulus, or of its later defendei"s, 
such as Rolir and Wegscheider. Its propagation grad- 
ually grew feeblei', relapsed into a frigid indifference, 
marked by a spasmodic curiosity or an idle indolence, 
and has quite lost its hold on the theological thought 
of the land. Devotional services have become more 
common among the students. The Scriptures are stud- 
ied with a feeling of devout reverence, and are no 
longer subjected to that profane ridicule Avhich has 
given an unenviable fame to many of the Rationalists. 

Much of this improved evangelical spirit observa- 
ble in the students of all the Pi'otestant Universities, — 
for even Tiibingen has been obliged to yield, — is due to 
the kindly intercourse between the professors and the 
students. In no country is education so much a matter 
of friendship as in Germany. The professors cultivate 
social and even intimate relations with the under- 
graduates, nor do they consider it beneath their dignity 
to invite them frequently to their homes, draw out their 
minds by discussing some important point, loan them 
books or periodicals, suggest subjects for essays or 
books, employ their service as amanuenses, and recora 
mend tliera in due time for proper vacancies. Who 



PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS. 



309 



would have suspected that half-bent, sallow little man, 
wrapped up in his blue coat, and walking briskly a mile 
or two from Halle through the wintry storm, of being 
the patient and devout Tholuck ? But he is not alone. 
Beside him is a youthful stripling who opens his heart 
to the professor, catches every word of response as if it 
were a priceless diamond, and treasures each utterance 
for future use. To-morrow, the same kindly teacher 
will be attended by one or two other young men, whom 
he is desirous to encourage, direct, and instruct. 

Such intimacy does not lead to any disrespect to- 
ward the professors, but rather increases the reverence 
for their age and talents. The hours of profitable commu- 
nion naturally become a fund of pleasant memories to 
the student in his subsequent life. Knowledge thus 
imparted is deeper-rooted than that conveyed in the 
lecture-i-oom, and hence, in the literary and theological 
history of Protestant Germany, we find many illustra- 
tions of the consistent and steady prosecution, by a 
disciple, of a tendency or system which the master com- 
menced but died too soon to finish. One of the prime 
agents in the rise of Pietism was Spener's child-like in- 
timacy with young men. They imbibed his spirit and 
knowledge, and the fire burned after his departure. 

Jean Paul has wittily said of the providential dis- 
tribution of the earth that the land was assigned to the 
French, the sea to the English, and the air to the Ger- 
mans. Popular opinion is not much at variance with 
this sentiment as far as the last proprietorship is 
concerned. But Germany has been practical withal. 
Shade of Jean Paul ! What if thy countrymen do 
live in the air ; they have not therefore flown so far 
away from the gross nether earth as to lose sight of its 
misery, nor become deaf to its w^ail of sorrow. 



310 



HISTOIIY OF RATIONALISM. 



German Protestantism has given birth to some of 
the greatest charities of the present age, whether we 
take into the account the number of the beneficiaries or 
the faith and self-sacrifice of the foundei-s and their suc- 
cessors. Even during the period of religious indifference 
there were here and there celebrated institutions de-^ 
signed for the amelioration of the suffering classes. 
They contended against great opposition, but, like a few 
stars amid surrounding clouds, their light appeai'ed to 
all the greater advantage. 

The only indications of evangelical faith in Ger- 
many at the closing peiiod of the eighteenth century 
were the quiet labors of such devoted friends of hu- 
manity as Oberlin, Hamann, Lavater, and Claudius. 
To the works of these were later added the beautiful 
and effective philanthropies of John Falk, the novelist 
and poet, whose reforraatoiy for juvenile beggars and 
offenders at Weimar became a fountain of good ; of 
Theodore Fleidner, whose Deaconess Institute at Kai- 
serswerth has been the forerunner of the mighty work 
of help and healing now in successful operation in 
Europe, in Asia, in Africa, and in America, and increas- 
ing in its scope on both sides of the Atlantic ; of John 
Henry Wichern, the founder of the Rauhe Haus at 
Horn, near Hamburg, which has grown into the system 
now known as the Inner Mission, with its arms of 
temporal and spiritual blessing extended to millions in 
need ; and of John Gossner and Louis Harms, of Her- 
mannsburg, whose missionary zeal and consecration 
have sent a thrill of gospel love to the ends of the 
earth.^ 

' On the charities of Germany see Stevenson, W. F., Praying and 
WorJcing; being an account of what a man can do when in earnest, New 
York, 1863; and DeLiefde, J., Six Months among the Charities of Europe. 
2 vols., London, 1865. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



LATER THEOLOGICAL MOVEi\rENTS IN GERMANY. 

The last thirty-five years have witnessed great 
changes in the trend of German thought. The leaven 
of faith has been penetrating the entire mass of German 
theology, and the prospect is to-day brighter than ever 
before. The bold and continued defense of Christianity 
in all its vital relations has accomplished great good 
during the entire interval between Schleiermacher's 
period of activity and the present time. The theolog- 
ical and religious thought of the fatherland more and 
more centers in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. The 
people have wearied of Rationalistic criticism, and are 
seeking after religious truth. Professor H. Gunkel, of 
Berlin, recently said : " Would to God that I had 
a voice with which I could reach the heart and con- 
science of the theoloo'ical investio^ator. I would shout 
day and night : ' Do not forget your saci^ed duty toward 
your people. Speak not of literary criticism, textual 
criticism, archaeology, and other learned subjects, but 
speak of religion. Remember the principal thing: 
Our people are thirsting for your words on religion.' 

To Theodore Christlieb, of Bonn, is due much of the 
credit for this satisfactory condition. He was born 
March 17, 1833, in Ludwigsburg. The same city, 
therefore, which gave to the w^orld David F. Strauss, 
one of the bitterest enemies of Christianity, also gave 
to it one of the ablest defenders of the orthodox faith. 
Christlieb's Modern Doiibt and Christian Belief^ gave 

^ Published in Germany, 1868, enlarged and transl. by H. U. 
Weitbrecht, and edited by T. L. Kingsbury, Lond., 1874, and N. Y., 



312 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



its author a pei'inanent and prominent place in the 
ranks of orthodox Christians. He was a keen ob- 
server of the religious life and movements both on the 
continent and in England, where he spent ten yeais 
of active service before his distinguished career as 
professor in Bonn. He early took and, even to his 
death, in 1889, at the age of fifty-six, steadfastly 
maintained a strong position as an evangelical 
leader, and both by his voice and pen championed 
the cause of a positive and aggressive Christianity 
against all forms of error, and especially against Ration- 
alism. His address at the Evangelical Alliance ' at 
New York in 1873 was memorable as a description of 
and an antidote to the current Rationalism of that day. 
In it he says : If criticism seeks to cast suspicion on 
the whole for the sake of a few isolated discrepancies, 
or if it arbitrarily attempts to measure the substance 
of Revelation by mere human standards, then it be- 
comes destructive, and then we must draw a hard and 
sharp line against its false pretensions." "To apply 
the standards of merely natural and human events to 
the self-revealing actions of God is to begin by doing 
violence to Scripture. This is the fundamental error 
of all false Rationalistic criticism." " Since the days of 
the Tubingen School this criticism has arrogated to 
itself the title of historical, though it is often only 
philosophical. It claims to examine with historical 
impartiality, and is often from the first biased by arbi- 
trary philosophical assumptions. These men approach 
the records of Christianity, imbued with a pantheistic 

^ Contained in History, Essays, Orations, and other documents of 
the Sixth General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance, held in New 
York, October 2-12, 1873. Edited by Philip Schaff and S. Irenaeus 
Prime, N. Y., 1874. 



CHRISTLIEB ON MIRACLES. 



313 



or Rationalistic aversion to the miraculous, with the 
intention of rendering the supernatural facts recorded 
therein as merely human as possible, by means of con- 
necting them with and denying their origin from 
contemporary histoi'ical phenomena — and of acknow^l- 
edging as historically certain only w^hat is perfectly 
transparent and intelligible to them, because it does 
not exceed man's capacity; just as if God the Lord 
could not make history with his deeds, which far tran- 
scend our comprehension — He who is Cause and Aim 
of all history ! This, in good sooth, is not impartial 
historical investigation, but rather the result of looking 
thi'ough highly distorted philosophical spectacles." 

Christlieb's argument for miracles is strong and 
clear. " If God be, as we Christians believe, a free, 
personal, extra-mundane Will, whose influence, never- 
theless, is omnipresent throughout the w^hole creation, 
then the approach to every point of this creation must 
be always open to him, and this necessitates the possi- 
bility of miracles. Doubtless the creative world is 
relatively independent; but can the laws of nature — 
which only act by God's good pleasure — form a barrier 
for him, Avhen in pursuance of the highest moral and 
religious ends it is his will to use extraordinary means? 
You talk of a breach of the law^s of nature. But first 
of all tell me, what limit is there to the intensification 
of natural forces by the power of the Divine Will ? 
And does not the product of the miracle immediately 
subject itself to the ordinary course of nature ? You 
object that miracles would rend the world's economy 
asunder. Ay, but the first great rent in the original 
order and harmony was made not by God, but by the 
sin of man. The abnormal development of our free- 
dom cannot only bear, but imperatively demands, the 



814 



IIISTOKY OF KATIONALISM. 



salutary intei fereuce of God as a work of pity and 
love. Miracles, therefoi-e, do not unnaturally destroy 
true nature, bat supernaturally heal distorted nature. 
Instead of, as formerly was customary, using isolated 
miracles as apologetic arguments, we would assign to 
each miracle, according to its evident dispensational 
aim, a place in the great organic plan of salvation, the 
living heart of which is Christ." 

Dorner, in his System of Christian Doctrine^ re- 
jects the resuri'ection of Christ's material body, claiming 
that this was ^'utterly laid aside and left in the grave 
in prosjDect of his heavenly life." He argues for a 
change akin to germination, rather than a rising again 
of the body. He favois, also, a modified form of pro- 
bation after death, though seemingly limiting it to 
those who have never heaixl the message of the Gospel. 
He says: ''The assumption that the termination of 
the earthly life is, in every case, the termination of 
the day of gi'ace, has been pi'etty generally given up 
on account of non-Christians who, never having heard 
of the Gospel, cannot be ripe for judgment. This has 
been a step towai'd naturalizing an alteration in the 
Reformation doctrine held concerning the intermediate 
state — an alteration which teaches that, even in the 
other world, a sj)iritual development, nay, probably a 
process of conversion, is conceivable — and has already 
begun to exert a reactionary influence upon liturgies." 

He occupies a position in close sympathy and 
affinity with the later Rationalists. His History of 
Christian Doctrine sums up his entire views more 
carefully than any other of his writings. It is, Pflei- 
derer says, "a work extremely rich in thought and 

^ Published in 1879-81, transl. by Alfred Cave and J. S. Banks, 
4 vols., Edinb., 1880-82. 



OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM. 



315 



matter. It takes the reader through a mass of histor- 
ical material by the examination and discussion of the 
various opinions of ancient and modern teachers, and 
so leads up to the author's own view, which is mostly 
one intermediate between opposite extremes, and ap- 
pears as a more or less successful synthesis of antago- 
nistic theses." ' 

The modern school of destructive criticism of the 
Old Testament may be said to have begun with 
a work from the hand of Vatke, on The Religions 
of the Old Testament, published in 1835. This w^as 
greatly obscured by a turgid Hegelian introduction 
and eclipsed by the superior literary brilliancy of 
Strauss's Life of Jesus. H. Graf is distinguished by 
his suggested hypothesis, put forth in his History of 
the Boohs of the Old Testament, in 1866, that Leviticus, 
and in general the priestly legislation of the Pentateuch, 
had a later origin than Deuteronomy, and were made a 
part of the earlier records after the period of the exile 
in Babylonia. Wellhausen's TJssctys on the Hexateuch 
appeared in 1876, and his History of Israel in 1878, in 
which he revived the Graf hypothesis with much ability 
and skill. Stronf^: and successful writers ao:ainst the 
theories of Graf, Wellhausen, and Kuenen, of Holland, 
have appeared in Schrader, Dillmann, Noldeke, Eiehm, 
Strack, Delitzsch, and others, who have shown with 
various degrees of clearness the exaggerations of the 
Graf School, and that the original code in many of its 
details and its language involves an origin earlier than 
the time of Ezra, and gives evidence of belonging to 
the earliest peiiod of Hebrew literature. 

Franz Delitzsch, of Leipzig, was a defender of the 

^ Development of Dogmatic Theology in Germany since Kant and its 
Progress in Great Britain since 1825, Lond. and N. Y., 1890, pp. 156, 157. 



316 



HISTOKY OF RATIOJS^ALISM. 



evangelical position against the spirit and methods of 
contemporary Kationalists. A firm believer in the 
siipernaturalism of the New Testament as based on 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he was yet a critical 
student and commentator. He opposed the destruc- 
tive methods of AVellhausen, Kuenen, and Renan, and 
at his death, in 1890, was engaged in studies whose 
progressive and constructive character would have 
made him a leader of the conservative scholarship of 
Germany. His work on The Messia7iic Prophecies in 
Historical Succession is a mastei'ly showing of the 
central unity of the Scriptures — the Messiahship of 
Christ portrayed in the Old Testament and fulfilled in 
the New.' The evangelical branch of the modern 
critical school, which may well consider Delitzsch. its 
foremost exegete, claims that the supernatural and the 
miraculous are not only possible, but to be expected; 
and yet there is dan2:er in takin<? such m'ound for the 
supernatural as to exclude a proper view of the human 
side with its infirmities and imperfections leaving its 
mark on the Scriptures. These study the Scriptures 
and also the facts, and their theory of inspiration is 
drawn jointly from these two sources. Delitzsch re- 
jects the theory that Deuteronomy is a fictitious por- 
tion of the Pentateuch. 

George Heinrich August Ewald brought out (1868- 
1876) his vast work on the History of the People of 
Israel^ in which he attempts to take his general posi- 
tion as midway between the evangelical and the 
Rationalistic. With brilliant rhetoric and a fervent 

^ Transl. by Samuel Ives Curtiss, N. Y., 1891. 

^ Transl. and edited by R, Martineau and J. E. Carpenter, 8 vols., 
Lond., 1869-76. He published also Eevelation; its Nature and Record^ 
translated in 1884. 



EWALd's HISTOKY of ISRAEL. 



317 



devotion to an ideally pei'fect religion, he labors to 
show that the Scriptures from beginning to end are 
the tracings, not of historical facts, but of the growth 
of j'eligious instincts and aspirations of the race, grad- 
ually developing an ever-rising type of humanity, until 
it culminates in the man of Nazareth, and in Chris- 
tianity as the true and absolute religion. Moses, Joshua, 
Samuel, and David were men in whom glowed the 
divine fire kindled by visions of the truth, who led 
the people of Israel to the exalted station they occu- 
pied as possessors of the true religion, and w^hose lives 
and influence are depicted, not in the sober colors of 
simple historical narrative, but in the overwrought 
and highly imaginative style of admiring biographers, 
who ascribed the prowess and achievements of their 
heroes to the direct interference of God. Ewald holds 
that the great personalities and the great acts of Israel's 
successive leaders from Abraham to John the Baptist 
made abiding impressions on their own and succeeding 
generations, but that the actual circumstances of their 
deeds and their times largely passed from the memory 
of man, and the gap thus made was filled by the 
writers of the Scriptures, which thus become mere 
tales of hero worship, glorifying the actors and ideal- 
izing their deeds. Thus he would eliminate fi'om the 
Bible all supernaturalism as a superfluity and w^ould 
explain away all miracles, although in part substituting 
a dynamic force working in Christ to the highest 
degree and transcending the normal bounds of human 
]3ower. His conception of the person and work of 
Christ is that of a sinless man and a saviour, whose 
salvation is wrought out and conveyed by a moral 
leadership. 

Bernhard Weiss, of Berlin, has given us a new Life 

22 



318 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM . 



of Christy' in which, while in the main holding to the 
supernatural, to the deity of Christ, and the inspiration 
of the Bible, he somewhat obscures these fundamentals 
by seeming concessions or weak statements. His view 
of Christ is that, w^hile he was sinless and wrought 
miracles, he was without sin because the Holy Spirit 
was given to him without measure, and he performed 
miracles by the aid of angels. Professor Weiss was 
largely instrumental in bringing Professor Harnack to 
Berlin. 

Christoph Ernst Luthardt, of Leipzig, published in 
1875 his St. John the Author' of the Fourth Gosjpel^ 
which forms an important contribution to the liter- 
ature centering about that apostle, and confirms the 
long-accepted view of the Johannean authorship both of 
the Gospel and the Apocalypse. Dr. Luthardt stands 
as the recognized leader of the Confessional School of 
the German Protestants. His teaching on inspiration 
is that individual men Avere specially inspired, though 
not to the destruction of their own individuality. 

The Spirit of God presided over their mental activity 
by revealing truth, illuminating their minds, and direct- 
ing their thoughts and words, so that they said the 
right thing in the right w^ords; and so it was adapted 
to the use, not only of their own time, but of the 
Church at all times." Yet " God did not treat them 
as mere machines, for it was only by the most concen- 
trated energy of their minds that they became organs 
of the Spirit." But the Scripture has primarily and 
always in view the salvation of men. This purpose 

^ Transl. by John Walter and M. G. Hope, 3 vols., Edinb., 1883, 
N. Y., 1883-4. 

Revised, transl., and the literature much enlarged by Caspar Rene 
Gregory, Leipzig, 3 vols., Edinb., 1875-79; new ed., 1883. 



SOME MODERN LEADERS. 



319 



must be ever kept in mind by all students, and is not 
to be brushed aside by the history of the books of the 
Bible 01' by any discovery of glosses on the text. 

Theodore Zahn, of Erlangen, has w^ritten boldly 
and with much scholarly point against the destructive 
higher critics, whom he charges with a demoniac spirit, 
with malice prepense, and a criminal unfaith. 

Theodore Keim, a student of Baur, took an inde- 
pendent course. While having much regard for Baur 
and his disciples, he rebukes their wanton use of 
hypotheses which call for a more credulous faith than 
the notions which they are supposed to displace. His 
great work was his History of Jesus of Nazara' He 
declines to reject miracles, especially the resurrection 
of Jesus, which he contended rests on the most satis- 
factory historical evidence. 

Adolf Hilgenfeld has been the leading and most 
prolific representative of the Tubingen School. He 
has been professor at Jena and since 1857 editor of the 
Jahrhucher fiir Wissenscliaftliche Theologie. He has 
advocated and used the historical literary method in 
his treatment of the New Testament literature, and 
thus abandoned the tendency " theory of Baur. 

Edward William Eugene Reuss, in his History of 
the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament^ takes 
ground essentially Kationalistic in excluding the super- 
natural not as impossible, but as transcending human 
power to make use of it. He pursues the historico- 
critical method in a calm and reverent temper. He 
held the early literature of Christianity, both the New 

' Published 1869-72, transl. by Ransom and Geldart, 6 vols., Lond., 
1876-83. 

* Published in the German in 1842, transl. from the 5th ed. (1872) 
into English by Edward C. Houghton, 3 vols., Edinb. and Boston, 1884. 



320 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



Testament books and other contempoi'aneous docu- 
ments, to be substantially on the same level. 

Johann Karl Friedrich Keil has been a leader 
among the conservatively orthodox school, holding to 
a doctrine of inspiration that covers chi'onological, 
historical, and scientific statements oi* allusions in the 
Scriptures. 

Eberhard Schrader, the eminent Assyriologist, says 
that the Assyrian inscriptions in general harmonize 
Avith the Scripture accounts, and, while they sometimes, 
though rarely, modify, they never contradict them. 

Carl Schwarz,in his History of the German Theology 
since 1835, says: "The Rationalism of the eighteenth 
century and of the beginning of the nineteenth century 
is assuredly dead without recall. It had neither heart 
nor head." 

David Fi'iedrich Strauss in his later career pub- 
lished The Old Faith and the New,' a finished literaiy 
production — radical on religion, but conservative on 
politics. Strauss held that religion, both as a belief 
and a worship, is the product of man's fear of the 
forces in nature, and that the personification of these 
forces arises from this scource. The fallacy of his 
position has been repeatedly pointed out, and the fact 
fully established that the mental process through 
which the mind passes is the primal one of the race ; 
that conscious personal power of causing effects leads | 
the child as the mature man directly to the belief and 
conviction that a personal will is operative in the 
manifold forms of natural force. Strauss endeavored 
to prove that the primitive religion of the race was 
]3olytheistic. But the trend of historical investigation 

^ A ConfessTon. Autkorized transl. from the 6th German ed. By 
Mathilde Blind, Lond. and K Y., 1873; new ed., 1874. | 



STRALTSS'S LATER WORK. 



321 



is against such a conclusion. The facts of Egyptian, 
Chinese, Assyrian, and, in general, of all oriental an- 
tiquity unite to show that the earlier religious condi- 
tions of these great nations were of a higher and pui'er 
type than those which followed in the later periods. 
He attacks the usual cosmological and teleological 
arguments for the existence of God, and instances with 
great gusto the theory of Darwin and the nebular 
hypothesis as evidences that the order of nature may 
be due entirely to impersonal necessity. He proceeds 
on the assumed basis of Darwin that only in organic 
bodies do we find indications of plan or aim, and that 
these are wholly explainable in all their vast variety 
and delicate intricacies by a process of development 
from a primordial cell so simple in itself as to require 
no account of its origin. The procedure is most mar- 
velous in its cool obliviousness to the single question : 
Whence comes life? Strauss's abiogenesis would 
transfer the prerogative of omnipotence from him in 
whose own image man was made and by whom ^'all 
things were made that were made," to a chance result- 
ant of the fortuitous interplay of the physical forces, 
"spontaneous generation," that will-o'-the-wisp which 
has lured many a would-be scientist into the quagmires 
of atheistic speculation. 

Strauss also pleads for the unscientific proposition 
that physical and mental forces correlate, and that, 
because physical forces are the antecedents of sensa- 
tion, therefore sensation is only another form of phys- 
ical force. Professor Bowne has ^vell summed up this 
later work.' 

In the realm of science and philosophy a few 
names are worthy of special mention in their attitude 

^ See Methodist Review, April, 1874, pp. 295, 296. 



322 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



toward the great religious questions. Rudolf Virchow, 
the eminent scientist and pathologist of Berlin, in 1877 
gave utterance to a most deserved rebuke to the pseudo- 
scientists who have loudly proclaimed their various 
antibiblical and illy digested hypotheses, and wdjose 
arrogance he describes as 'Hhe tyranny of dogmatism 
which undertakes to master the whole view of nature 
by the premature generalizing of theoretical general- 
izations." Virchow has uttered his doubts of Darwin, 
ism in terms as explicit as these: "I should be neither 
surprised nor astonished if the proof were produced 
that man had ancestors among other vertebrate ani- 
mals. But I am bound to declare that every positive 
advance which we have made in the province of pre- 
historic anthropology has actually removed us farther 
from the proof of such a connection." As to abiogen- 
esis he says: This ge7ieratio aequivoca which has been : 
so often contested and so often contradicted is, neverthe- 
less, always meeting us afresh. To be sure, we know Ji 
not a single positive fact to prove that a generatio \ 
aequivoca has ever been made, that inorganic masses 
— such as the firm of Carbon & Co. — have ever spon- 
taneously developed themselves into organic masses. 
]No one has ever seen a generatio aequivoca effected ; li 
and whoever supposes that it has occurred is contra- 
dicted by the naturalist, and not merely by the theo- 
logian. We must acknowledge that it has not yet 
been proved." 

Hermann Rudolf Lotze, formerly of Gottingen, and 
later for a brief year of Berlin, in his Microcosmus has 
said, ''Whichever of the two ways of creation God 
may have chosen, neither will cause the dependence of 
the world on him to become laxer; neither will attach 
it to him more firmly." Maintaining that actual dem- 



VIRCHOW AND LOTZE. 



323 



onstration of the soul's immortality is impossible, lie 
nevertheless ably argues, "that whose worth and 
meaning entitle it to be a permanent member of the 
world's economy will live eternally ; that which lacks 
this preserving worth will be destroyed." In his 
Medicinische Psychologie (1872) he gave an impulse 
to the recently developed science of physiological psy- 
chology. Lotze's philosophy makes too much of the 
mechanical laws operative in the inorganic realm, but 
also gives a just prominence to man as the central 
figure in the world. He would regard matter, life, 
and mind, not as real entities, but as phenomena of 
some one underlying substance, furnishing a basis for 
one universal science. He fails, however, as must 
every one else, to find or define this unifying substance. 

Of his philosophy it may be said it is an idealism 
which grew^ out of the development of ideas connected 
with natural history and medicine. He narrowly 
escapes agnosticism in his oft-repeated principle that 
knowledge is possible only by immediate contact with 
external objects. He says all souls are in one common 
solidarity interacting upon one another, and by such 
interaction the human spirit tends to a separation 
from its material setting and rises to purer and loftier 
attainments. Of God he speaks as the personal and 
immanent Ruler over this world of souls and spirits, 
the vital breath of all. We cannot grasp him by 
thought ; but only by feeling can we come into com- 
munion with him. 

Karl Robert Edward von Hartmann made a philo- 
sophical attack upon Christianity in 1874 in his Spon- 
taneous Decomposition of Christianity and the Heligion 
of the Future, which was answered by several able 
writers, among whom was Johann N. Huber, of Munich, 



324 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



whose pamphlet on The Religious Question (1875) 
fully meets and refutes Hai'tniann's arguments. 
Doriier wrote an able article for the Studien und 
Kritihen (1881) on Hartmann's Pessimistic Philoso- 
phy^ of which he says : It hovers between heaven 
and earth. Too lame to reach heaven, it is yet unable 
to feel at home on earth. Thus pessimism, and par- 
ticularly Hartmann's philosophy, will maintain its 
significance in the history of German philosophy as a 
stage of ti'ansition from the rule of empiricism and 
eudemonism to a new positive-ideal progress." 

Ernst Haeckel, of Jena, in his Natural History of 
CreatioiV and Weltraethsel^ is a most pronounced ad- 
vocate of an atheistic evolution and a radical monism. 
The later work received a drastic review and refuta- 
tion at the hand of Professor Paulsen, of Berlin. He 
makes the two great and unfair assumptions of hered- 
ity and adaptation, both of which terms imply some 
directive or controlling principle as antecedently se- 
lecting means to certain ends. He displays great 
antipathy to anthropomorphism, but hesitates not to 
put in its place a theory which might well be named 
the machine-formed. 

Oscar Hartwag, in an address to scientists in 1900 
at Wlirzburg, declared that biology must look for more 
light, not from physics and chemistiy, but from psy- 
chology, ethics, and religion ; and that from all evi- 
dence so far discovered we know of life only as the 
product of life. 

The Protestant Association of Germany is the 
name taken in 1863 by an organization of the ad- 
vanced liberalists, whose aim is to bring all religious 

^ Published in 1868-9. 

= World-Riddle, published in 1900. 



plfeidp:rer. 



325 



discussion into conformity with the latest historical 
and scientific thought. The product of their methods 
and principles is a shifting and vapory theology that 
repels the sober and earnest minds among the common 
l^eople, and wins its readiest support chiefly among 
those who are not loth to part with the restraints of 
religion and morals. 

Otto Pfleiderer, of Berlin, is a leader in the Prot- 
estant Association, and the trend of his writing has been 
to the minifying to the lowest degree, if not indeed to 
the total elimination, of the supernatural. He does 
not accept miracles in evidence of revelation. He 
would explain supposed miracles simply as the phe- 
nomena of whose natural laws the observei's were 
ignorant. He holds that, even if the supernatural 
were granted, there would be no certainty whether 
the miracle was to be attributed to a good or bad 
spirit. He claims that belief in miracles springs from 
the faith of the individual, yet not from the faith of 
the observer, but from him who accepts the account. 
He would thus make the record of the miracle the 
product, but not the basis, of faith. 

Pfleiderer has produced a volume on the Philoso- 
lj>liy of Religion^ by which he came into deserved 
prominence as a leader of the Neo-Kantian School. 
He attempts the combination of the views of Schleier- 
macher and Hegel, joining the excellence of the former 
in his delineation of the orio^inal character of relio^iou 
with the unique philosophical unity of the latter. 
Differing from Rothe by refusing any place to mira- 
cle, he yet maintains the idea of personality, con- 

^ Published in 1869 in 3 vols., and in a second ed. entirely recast 
and transl. by A. Menzies and A. Stewart, 4 vols., Lond. and N. Y., 
1886-88, under the title, Philosophy of Religion on the Basis of its History. 



326 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



sciousness, and freedom in God. In spite of some 
venturesome criticisms Pfleiderer has on the main 
issues been a conservative force as against the inroads 
of stark Rationalism. 

The leaders of thought have themselves felt the 
need of a different view-point from that taken by the 
Rationalistic school. The most radical change since 
the days of Schleiermacher was brought about by 
Albrecht Ritschl, professor in Gottingen, who be- 
came the founder of a strong school of theologiccil 
thought. He defined Christianity as the "monothe- 
istic, perfectly spiritual and moral religion, which 
consists of the liberty enjoyed by the cliiklren of God 
through the life of its Founder, who caine to save 
men and to establish the kingdom of God; which 
includes action springing from the motive of love and 
directed upon the moral organization of humanity ; 
and which presents as the basis of salvation the rela- 
tion of sonship to God and the kingdom of God." 
Christianity is an ellipse in which ''salvation through 
Christ" and "the kingdom of God" are the nodes. 
Christ is all-important in the Church, because he was one 
with the Father in that his life purpose was the same 
as God's purpose with the world ; because he alone 
was sufficiently endow^ed to establish God's kingdom ; 
and because the rulership of the world has been trans- 
ferred to him. Christ is to be called God only in the 
practical, never in the metaphysical, sense of the tei m ; 
for he is God only because grace, fidelity, and ruler- 
ship over the world, the attributes of God that are 
essential to the Christian religion, inhere in him as iu 
no other person. The preexistence of Christ can he 
predicted only so far as God is concerned ; for us his 
preexistence is hidden. 



EITSCHL. 



327 



The kingdom of God is dependent entirely upon 
God. Man enters into perfect freedom by directing 
his thought and life into channels that run parallel 
to the purposes of God developed in his kingdom. 
This presupposes the ability on the part of the Chris- 
tian to realize these purposes. This realization must 
ever be imperfect because sin is present. Sin appears 
as immoral and irreligious. This leads to the concept 
of a realm of sin. To save men from this realm is 
the office of Christ. Salvation through Christ means 
pardon, and this is identical with justification. This 
is not a judicial but a creative act of God in that men 
who had heretofore been at enmity with him are 
through pardon placed in a relation of harmony with 
him. There is therefore no practical difference be- 
tween j)ardon and justification, or redemption and 
regeneration. Faith is the form through which, the 
sinner secures justification. It is a new turning of the 
will upon God, which is produced by redemption. 
Its nature includes the perennial harmony between 
the Christian's ^vill and the purposes of God and 
Christ. The Holy Spirit is, in relation to God, the 
knowledge which God has of himself. He is an 
attribute of the Christian congregation, because it has 
that knowledge of God and his design with men 
which harmonizes with God's knowledge of himself. 

In his Christian Doctrine of Justification and Atone, 
ment (1870-74) E-itschl gives an exhaustive and crit- 
iical statement of the various views of the atonement 
held from the times of Anselm to the present. Ritschl's 
own doctrine of the atonement he draws directly from 
the Scriptures. He considers love, not power, to be 
the foundation principle in the nature of God. The 
leading philosophical principle in Ritschl's system is that 



328 



IIISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



our knowledge of things is not of them as they really 
are, but as they have value for us ; and another chief 
point of his teaching is that experience is the great 
touchstone of all religious truth. He makes much of 
the historical features of Christianity, and claims for it 
an acceptance as a body of truth communicated through 
Christ. 

The Ritschlian view of the divinity of Christ is 
that it is not a dogma to be accepted and repeated for 
the sake of secuiiug redemption, but that it is a knowl- 
edge that marks the conclusion, not that conditions 
the beginning, of the way of salvation. 

This outline of Ritschl's theology shows the radical 
difference between the Eationalists and this recent 
leader of liberal thought. While his liberality may 
not fully satisfy the demands of orthodoxy, yet it 
never assumes to place reason above revelation. It is 
freedom in interpretation, not freedom in undermining 
and ravaging the realms of truth; it is liberty, not license. 

The most prominent representative of liberal theo- 
logical thought in Germany to-day is Adolph Harnack, 
professor and rector of the University of Berlin. His 
theology is Ritschlian, but he is also an independent 
thinker. He has made large use of Ritschl's pi'inciple 
in his disregard of philosophy in theological studies. 
He has been w^ell described as " a sort of theological 
Schliemann, digging down through the rubbish which 
has accumulated about and above primitive Chiis- 
tianity during the ages, and laying bare the Christianity 
of Christ." 

His main service to the Church lies in his exhaustive 
research in early Christian literature. This is the very 
work which, after the lawless theorization and wanton 
destruction of the critical school, needed to be done by 



HARNACK. 



329 



a master workman like Harnack. His early inclina- 
tions had led him to assume a late origin of the 'New 
Testament canon. In his History of Dogma he had 
bent all his energies to prove that the thought pre- 
sented in these books was but the development of 
Greek philosophy under the peculiar impetus imparted 
by the "enthusiastic period'' following the work of 
Christ. For such a development time was necessary, 
and hence the origin of the gospels and epistles must 
be put at the latest possible date. In 1892 he wrote : 
" The Fourth Evangelist hardly belongs to the first 
century." But in 1897 he issued The Clironology of the 
Ancient Christian Literature vp to Eusebius^ in which 
he gives A. D. 110 as tlie latest possible date of John's 
gospel, and in the preface to this great work he writes : 
There was a time — and the general public still lives 
in it — in which it was thought that the oldest Chris- 
tian literature, including the New Testament, must be 
regarded as a Aveb of deception and falsehood. This 
time is past. For Science it was a period in which 
she learned much and after which has much to forget. 
The results of the following investigations exceed in 
their reactionary tendency even what may be termed 
the middle ground of modern criticism. The oldest 
Christian literature is in the main and in most of its 
details true and authentic as far as historico-literary 
research can determine. In the entire New Testament 
there is probably but one book which in the strictest 
sense of the word must be designated as jDseudonymous, 
namely, the second epistle of Peter." 

With these words and others of the same tenor the 
greatest champion of liberal theological thought in 
Germany strikes the last fatal blow to the Tubingen 
criticism, which now sleeps its last sleep. 



330 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



A book which has stirred the theological world of 
Germany more deeply than anything else since the 
publication of Schleiermacher's Discourses on Religion 
is Harnack's lectures on the Essence of Christianity, 
delivei'ed during the winter semester of 1899-1900 to 
the students of all colleges in the University of Berlin. 
They have been received with unbounded enthusiasm 
by many, and have been heralded as the precursors of 
a new era in theology, being, as it is claimed, the ex- 
pression of those ideas which all Christians can accept. 

Some things which orthodoxy regards as essential 
to Christianity are in this work ignored, and to some 
of his utterances the Church must take exception ; but 
even the most radical opponent of his views will rec- 
ognize the glowing warmth of Harnack's religious 
fervor, his lofty character, and his intense yearning to 
get at the whole truth irrespective even of his own 
most cherished views. ''Christianity," says Harnack, 
"is not the sum total of doctrinal utterances. Chris- 
tianity is not biblical theology, not the teachings of 
Church councils, but the disposition which the Father 
of Jesus Christ awakens in the heart through his 
Gospel." " Whatever is not born of faith is foreign to 
the Christian religion, and hence foreign to Christian 
theology." '' How desperate would be the condition of 
humanity if the higher peace for which we yearn, and 
the clearness, certainty, and power for which we wrestle, 
were dependent on the measure of our knowledge and 
understanding." "The Christian religion is something 
lofty, something simple, and is directed upon one point, 
namely, eternal life in the midst of time, in the power 
and presence of God." " All religion appears paradox 
when measured by the standards of experience and 
exact science ; here a factor is introduced and declared 



HARNACk's essence of CHRISTIANITY. 



381 



to be of paramount importance which is imperceptible 
to the senses, and which contradicts recognized facts." 
"Let not those speak of love to their neighbors who 
can endure to see their fellow-beings go down in 
wretchedness and ruin. . . .Christianity would institute 
a society among men as all-embracing as human 
existence and reaching down as deep as human 
miseiy." "Eeligion — that is, love toward God and 
love toward man — is the one thing that gives a mean- 
ing to life ; science cannot do it. As one wdio has 
devoted himself to these matters now thirty years, I 
may be permitted to say a word from experience. 
Pure science is a noble thing, but to the questions 
concerning the whence, the wherefore, and the whither 
it can give no clearer answer to-day than it could two 
or three thousand years ago. But if we energetically 
assent to the forces and the values which flow forth as 
our real eoro from the loftiest elevations of our inner 
life ; if we possess the dignity and the courage to 
assign reality to them and to frame our conduct in 
harmony with them ; if we then, taking note of the 
progress of history, recognize its upward trend, and, 
striving and serving, seek for the association of kin- 
dred spirits — then we will not go down to dissatisfac- 
tion and despair, but will come to a knowledge of 
God, that God whom Jesus called Father, and who is 
also our Father." 

The slender reed of destructive criticism, which at 
the beginning of the nineteenth century piped forth its 
carping note of imbecile impatience with the homage 
which a Christianized world was laying at the feet of 
Jesus has been cast aside, and Germany has again 
taken up the trumpet to sound the triumph of Christ 
around the earth. 



CHAPTER XIV. I 

HOLLAND: THEOLOGY AND RELIGION FROM THE SYNOD j 
OF DORT TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE NINE- ; 
TEENTH CENTURY. | 

The only country whose national existence and in- 
dependence are due to the Reformation is Holland. 
To be the first to break the triumphant power of the 
Spanish army would have been glory enough for any 
ordinary ambition, but no sooner was her independence \ 
declared than she gave signs of great commercial and 
intellectual activity. Her Hud sons navigated every 
sea and planted the Dutch flag on shores not then 
traced on any map of the world ; her manufacturers 
supplied all markets with the fruit of their labor and 
ingenuity ; her soldiers were a match for any European 
force ; her De Ruyters and Van Tromps knew how to 
contend with the Blakes of England ; her William of 
Orange, whom she gave to her British neighbor, made 
as good a ruler as ever lived in Whitehall ; her scien- 
tific men founded the systems which have continued in 
use to the present time ; her philosophers revolutionized 
the thinking of the civilized world; her universities 
were the seat of the most thorough humanistic re* 
searches of the age ; her painters founded new schools 
of art, and vied with the Italian masters ; her theolo- 
gians gave rise to controversies which brought all 



EIBE OF EATIONAUSM. 



333 



<jlmrclies and their champions within the scene of con- 
flict ; and her pulpit orators acquired a celebrity which, 
in spite of the inflexibility of the language, was second 
only to that enjoyed by the most renowned preachers 
of France and Great Britain. 

After Holland had fallen a victim to her political 
partisanship, she gradually disappeared from public 
observation. Her greatness in the past would have 
been well nigh forgotten if Prescott and Motley had 
not recalled it. But the judgment of the world con- 
cerning her, in her present state, is not more flattering 
than that of the author of Hudihras^ who, in addition 
to venting his spleen against the people, employs his 
wit upon the irrational land, calling it, 

" A country that draws fifty feet of water, 
In whicli men live as in the hold of nature ; 
And when the sea does in upon them break, 
And drowns a province, does but spring a leak." 

But while the political status of Holland has been 

inferior and unobserved during the last two hundred 
years, her important theological and religious career, — 
covering a much longer period than that, — is a theme 
of deep interest to every student of the history of the 
church. 

Rationalism arose in Holland by means of seme 
agencies similar to those which had produced it in 
Germany. The previous disputes and barren ministra- 
tions of the clergy made the soil ready for any theologi- 
cal error that might urge its claims with force. But 
the repulsive technicalities of Germany were not equally 
prevalent in Holland, and Scholasticism refused to 
affiliate with the Reformed much longer than with the 
Lutheran church. 

23 



334 



mSTOHY OF RATIONALISM. 



But when tlie Synod of Dort, wMcli held its sessions 
in 1618-1619, pronounced those dogmas by which the 
Arminians were excluded from the Dutch church, it 
established a standard of orthodoxy. In proportion as 
the synod gained the favor of the people, the Bible 
came into use, but more to serve the cause of polemics 
than of edification. Hugo Grotius, Erasmus, and 
other exegetical writers who had manifested inde- 
pendence in their interpretation of the Scriptures, were 
regarded with great suspicion and distrust. The door 
for the entrance of Scholasticism was thrown wide open. 
To use the language of a writer of that day, " The doc- 
trines were cut after the fashions of Peter Lombard 
Thomas Aquinas, and Scotus ; while the power of the 
word of God was denied, and the language of Babel 
was heard in the streets of Jerusalem." Theologians 
made an idle display of learning. Imaginary distinc- 
tions, definitions, and divisions became the food of the 
youth in schools of every grade, and of the congrega- 
tions in all the churches. The books which have come 
down to us from that period are weapons against 
Atheism, Deism, Socinianism, and every other heresy 
that had arisen during the history of Christianity. 
Whether light was created on the first day ; whether it 
was an attribute or a substance ; whether Adam, after 
the formation of Eve, was a rib the worse ; whether 
the knowledge of the unconverted may be called spirit- 
ual knowledge ; — these were some of the topics of la- 
bored sermons. It was announced as a most gratifying 
result of accurate research that the soul of a boy was 
created forty days after conception, while that of a girl 
required eighty. 

There were exceptions to the general sterility of the 
pulpit and lecture-room. Alting, professor at Groningen, 



COEEUPTIOlSr OF ETHICS. 



335 



enjoyed tlie sobriquet of " Biblical Theologian " because 
he made the Scriptures, and not Scholasticism, the basis 
of his inquiries. Students from foreign lands flocked to 
his auditorium, and received the leaven of his earnest 
and reverent spirit. Yet his candidates were distrusted, 
and he had great trouble in defending himself against 
repeated charges of heresy. 

But another important feature of the prevalent 
theology was the corruption of ethics. The doctrines 
of grace, of which the church of Holland had always 
been the defender, left no room for an ethical system. 
What the unconverted man does is nothing but sin ; 
all are equally guilty ; and all that we have of good is 
from God. If we be disposed to ask, " Does not this 
view make men careless and impious ? " the answer 
comes back from the Catechism, " No ; for it is impos- 
sible that those who are planted in Christ should be 
without the fruits of gratitude." This opinion had a 
strong, tendency to isolate theology still more than 
scholasticism had done from all practical interests. 
" What shall we do ? " was an idle question, for, as a 
matter of course, man could do nothing. But " what 
must I be ? " was the all-important and searching in- 
quiry. Thus ethics glided into radical casuistry, and, 
in this form, became united with the scholastic theology. 

The homiletic literature of that day indicates the 
unification very clearly. Besides being a tirade against 
schismatics of all classes, the discourse was often a discus- 
sion of grammatical principles, accompanied with a de- 
scription of the spiritual condition of every hearer. 
After the singing of the hymn in the middle of its de- 
livery, the people adjusted themselves to hear the appli- 
cation in which their cases were to be stated. There was 
Urst^ an enumeration of " heretical sinners," divided into 



336 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



numerous groups ; second^ the " unconverted," separated 
into many subdivisions ; and third^ the many flocks of 
Christians. It was in this part of the sermon that the 
casuistry of the preacher had full play, and he who 
could subdivide his congregation in such a way that 
every auditor could not mistake his own proper position, 
received great honor from his brethren. The hearer 
waited until he " heard his name called," after which he 
might sink back again to his dreams. Even to this day, 
on leaving a Dutch church, it is a common question 
among the separating members to inquire of each otheri 
" Have you heard the dominie call your name ? " They 
mean by this, " Have you heard the pastor so describe 
people that you could not mistake the class to which | 
you belong ? " 

We have now stated the two sources from which 
many of the troubles and defections of the Church 
of Holland have sprung. On the one hand was 
dogmatism, with its endless distinctions, begotten and 
fostered by Scholasticism. On the other, practical 
mysticism, cherished into strength by a disgusting sys- 
tem of casuistic ethics. The reaction against those prev- 
alent errors was Rationalism. They were the domes- 
tic fountains of that species of error. 

But there were men who, when they saw the evils 
their venerated Church was suffering, threw themselves 
into the breach, and contended for her deliverance. 

Cocceius, the celebrated opponent of Scholasticism, 
was born in Bremen, in 1603. He studied all branches 
of theology ; but, having been instructed in Hebrew by 
a learned Rabbi of Hamburg, he applied himself espe- 
cially to the Scripture languages. In 1629 he visited 
the Dutch University of Franeker, and wrote tracts on 
the Talmud, with extracts therefrom in German. He 



THE COCCEIAN CONTKOYEESY. 



337 



also composed Greek verses witli great ability. Re- 
turning the same year to Bremen, lie there became Pro- 
fessor of Sacred Philology. In 1636 he was called to 
Franeker, to take the Hebrew first, and afterward the 
Greek chair. Still later he taught theology. His exe- 
getical works, being far in advance of any which had 
appeared at that time, acquired great renown for 
their author. In 1649 he was invited by the Curators 
of the University of Leyden to take charge of the de- 
partment of theology in that seat of learning. His 
long-cherished antipathy to Scholasticism was well 
known, but he pursued his course in quiet until 1658, 
when he was daringly assailed. 

Having developed his opinion that the Sabbath had 
not been institnted in Paradise, but in the desert, and 
was not therefore binding upon Christians, Cocceius 
was buffeted by a host of writings, in which he was 
charged with every imaginable species of skepticism. 
The literature of the Cocceian controversy abounds 
in as violent and harsh expressions as have disgraced 
theological history at any time. Yet Cocceius was not 
without ardent disciples and friends, who knew as well 
how to give as to receive severe thrusts. As an illus- 
tration of the method of the discussion, we mention 
the title of a book written in favor of Cocceius : 
" Satan's Defense of himself, on being questioned why he 
had instigated some persons to distort and vilify the or- 
thodox, wise, and edifying Writings of the Blessed 
Professor Cocceius, &c., &c." In this work Satan, on 
being questioned whom he fears most, replies that " no 
one has done more harm to the power of darkness than 
Cocceius, — not even Calvin." 

The States of Holland wrote to the Synod not to 
discuss the Sabbatarian question, and to forbid the com- 



338 



mSTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



batants from further controversy. There were other 
charges brought against Cocceius, however, one of 
which was his distinction between acptoii; d^aQTiav and 
nccQtoig dfiaQTtcov^ by which he held that the former 
was a complete pardon, but the latter incomplete, and 
only in force under the old dispensation. He placed 
the whole system of theology under the figure of a 
covenant. There were two covenants, one of works, 
and the other of gi-ace. The latter had a threefold 
economy ; before the law ; after the law ; and under the 
Gospel. The institutions under the first economy were 
symbolical of the second ; and these again of the third. 
Everything was a shadow of some higher and future 
good. Forgiveness was no exception to the rule. That 
of the Old Testament was jidcQiatg preparing the way 
for the complete dcptaig of the New. 

There was one point of agreement between Cocceius 
and Descartes: their common aim of emancipation 
from Scholasticism. But the former strove by revela- 
tion, the latter by philosophy to secure the result. 
It has been charged that Descartes influenced Cocceius, 
since the school of that philosopher was growing into 
power at the very period of the Cocceian tendencies, 
But the charge is groundless. Descartes stood on the 
ground of reason alone, while Cocceius planted himself 
upon the Scriptures. Thus there was a world-wide dif- 
ference between the two men at the very starting-point 
of their systems ; a difference which becomes more ap- 
parent at every additional step in the study of their 
sentiments. 

If Cocceius was opposed when he arrayed the Bible 
against Scholasticism, Descartes might be expected to 
meet with increased resistance when he used only the 
weapon of philosophy. " Aristotle," said the theologi- 



DESCARTES A^B VOETIUS. 



339 



€al world of Holland, " was a heathen, it is true, but 
then he afterwards became soundly converted to Cathol- 
icism. In due time he was transfoi'med into a most ex- 
emplary Protestant. Yet this Descartes is a down- 
right Jesuit, and a very demon let loose from the in- 
fernal world. His whole system commences with doubt 
and is pervaded by it. How dangerous then to our or- 
thodoxy is the attack of this Catholic Arminian ! If 
his assumption concerning skepticism be correct our 
whole theology becomes overturned ; for then the elect 
would have ground for doubting their own salvation, 
which would be opposed to the infallible doctrine of 
the final perseverance of the saints. And to crown the 
scene of this Descartes' audacity, he holds that the 
earth and not the sun turns round, which, as good 
father Brakel says, 'is a sure sign that the man's head 
is turned.'" 

Voetius was the leader of the forces against the pre- 
tentious philosophy. A book, issued anonymously by a 
friend of Spinoza, applying a little more logic to the 
Cartesian idea of substance, caused him to obtain addi- 
tional ground. For the new school which he was com- 
bating already rested under the imputation of Crypto- 
Atheism. The hand of the government interfered, and 
Cartesianism appeared to be extinguished. But it had 
its secret admirers, especially in the academies of North- 
ern France, where its adherents occupied almost every 
chair of instruction. Its last representative was Ruard 
Andala, 1701, at whose death Newton and Leibnitz 
came into power. 

The place assigned to reason by Cocceius led his foes 
to accuse him of Cartesianism. He made the intellect 
the interpreter of Scripture in this sense; that, since 
the words of the Bible are capable of many mean- 



340 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



ings, reason must decide which are proper and which 
improper, and not be forgetful to derive as much 
thought as possible from the sacred text ; " for " said he, 
"the Scripture is so ricb that an able expositor will 
bring more than one sense out of it." He aimed to find 
Christ and his church in each biblical book ; but he in- 
terpreted every statement as allegorical, typical or pro- 
phetical. Reason as applied by him, became a light to 
expose many sides of truth which had never been per- 
ceived by the reigning dogmatism. The result of his 
labors was the overthrow, in many minds, of philosoph- 
ical Scholasticism, but the enthroning of biblical Scho- 
lasticism in its stead. His allegorical method of expo- 
sition led his followers into gross aberrations. 

The Cocceians and Voetians were now the two great 
theological parties which attracted to their standards 
nearly every man of promise or note throughout Holland. 
The former were the Progressives, the latter the Conserv- 
atives. The Cocceians favored the entrance of new 
ideas, and effected the junction of philosophy and the- 
ology. The Voetians professed to desire a reform, but 
their conduct was not in harmony with their avowal. 
While they agreed with their antagonists in calling the 
Bible the fountain of light and truth, they held that 
the fathers of Dort and the Reformers had digested its 
contents and explained its meaning in most excellent 
summaries, and that "it was for us to light our candles 
at those great lights of the church." They were very 
properly called " Tradition arians," a name of which 
they were proud. One of their writers said, ''We 
have canght up the last voices and words of our ances- 
tors, those Fathers of whom we are now glad to call 
ourselves the echo."^ 



^ Owennsters. 



DISCIPLES OF COCCEIUS. 



341 



The Cocceians studied the original text, and took 
leave to differ often from the authority of the trans- 
lators. Their opponents attached great value to the 
translation, and sometimes called it " inspired." The 
former delayed not to appropriate the fruits of the latest 
researches in science and criticism, in certain cases lay- 
ing aside fragments of the text in favor of the sugges- 
tions of the most recent editions of Cocceius. To the 
Voetians this conduct was not much better than 
atheism. They hurled all the curses and plagues 
of the Bible against every one who whispered that 
there could be a mistake in the transcription of a 
word or even of a Hebrew vowel-point. The Coc- 
ceian brought all his questions into the pulpit, where 
he preached them in a manner more adapted to 
addle the heads of his hearers than to edify their 
hearts. Hebrew grammars were published for the 
laity. Even women, — among whom was Anna Maria 
Schurmann, the adherent and friend of Voetius, — 
were able to read the Bible in the original tongues. 
Nor did they hesitate to take part in the angry disputes 
of theologians. The Cocceians ran wild with their 
principles of fanciful interpretation. Every prophecy 
was, in their view, a treasury of allegorical facts yet to 
come to pass, and to be heartily endorsed. The Voe- 
tians prided themselves on their literalism, and named 
Hugo Grotius as their master. Yet they held that 
they never could swallow his abominable Arminianism. 

The history of hermeneutics in all times shows that 
there is but one step from the literal to the allegorical. 
So with the Voetians. They indicated a disposition to 
yield, and at length became more fanciful and allegorical 
than their adversaries had been. They sought the in- 
terior sense of the text, but would be limited by no 



342 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



mles. They spiritualized tlie entire contents of the 
Bible. He who could draw most profit and instruction 
from a word was the best teacher, for a scribe must 
bring forth from his " heart " both new tilings and old. 
Not reason, nor logic, but experience and feeling must 
explain every word of God. The Bible literally be. 
came all things to all men. The " inner light " was ita 
great interpreter. Many people despised scientific 
students of the truths of revelation, calling them " slaves 
of the letter," — a term which, singularly enough, is still 
in common use amonc; the uneducated members of the 
church of Holland. The Bible, taken in its real charac- 
ter, was banished and an artificial volume placed in its 
stead. Practical mysticism was now fairly inaugurated. 
Even conventicles spread throughout the country, and 
ignorant men who knew how " to speak to the hearts of 
the people " were infinitely preferred to any educated 
minister. 

The strife ran very high. While there was an 
assimilation of the Voetians to the Cocceians in the 
application of the allegorical principle of interpretation, 
there was a moral retrogression of the latter which 
greatly reduced their strength. This arose from the 
defective views of Cocceius on the sanctity of the Sab- 
bath. His disciples carried his unfortunate opinion far 
enough to gain the favor of the worldly and immoral 
classes. The freest customs and gayest fashions were 
imported from France, and Cocceian ministers made it 
theii* boast that they designed to keep up with the 
times. More spiritual adherents became disafifected by 
the growing impiety. Koelman, a layman, and Loden- 
steyn, a clergyman, gave the alarm that the kingdom 
of Christ had become secularized and corrupt. The 
latter would not baptize the children of unbelievers nor 



THE FEENCH HUGUETOTS. 



343 



hold any communion witli them. De Labadie, formerly 
a Jesuit but afterward a French minister, blew the 
clarion of reform. The watchword on all sides was, 

. Separate ye my people." Nothing but the stringency 

I of his rules and the counter-efforts of the government 
prevented the pious masses from joining the reformer. 
Mystical sects, influenced by Jacob Boehme and 
Spinoza, appeared here and there. Chiliastic ideas 
spread abroad in proportion as men despaired of the 
speedy regeneration of the church through natural in- 

; etrumentalities. All was commotion and disruption^ 
and, for a time, everything seemed to be on the down- 
\vard course to ruin. 

I But the imminence of the danger brought a speedy 
and violent reaction. The persecution of the French Hu- 
guenots drove them across the boundary line. The Dutch, 
true to their traditional hospitality, received them 
with open arms. The guests returned their welcome 
by diffusing new spiritual life through the hospitable 
country. The Cocceians laid off their worldly habits. 
Days of fasting and prayer were appointed by the civil 
and ecclesiastical authorities, while an increasing love 
for the church, as bequeathed by the fathers, was over- 
spreading the land. The attachment to what was old 
and time-honored became a glowing enthusiasm. Sharp 
distinctions between parties disappeared. Men who 
had formerly been violently arrayed against each other 
now expressed a disposition to unite in one coromon 
effort to restore the church to her former purity. 
Brokel, Imytegeld, Groenewegen, Lampe, and Vitringa, 
representing different and opposing forces, united in a 
harmonious effort to reform the heritage of Christ. 
Their labors were fruitful, for the people greatly hon- 
ored them and earnestly followed their good adv^ice. 



344 mSTOEY OF eatjot^alism. 

The theological candidate had previously been asked 
two questions, which had an important bearing upon 
his subsequent life. One was, " Do you fear God ? " 
The other was, " To what pai-ty do you belong ? " The 
latter inquiry was now abolished. In every university 
the long-prevalent partisanship subsided. But under 
the improved state of religion, a Voetian was invariably 
placed in the chair of dogmatic theology, a Cocceian in 
that of exegesis, and a follower of Lampe in charge of 
practical theology. The pulpits were likewise supplied 
with an equal number of ministers from the ruling 
parties. 

After 1738 the religious progress of the church of 
Holland became more tardy. Attention to spiritual 
life decreased, while more care was bestowed upon the 
improvement of theological training. The department 
receiving greatest favor was the linguistic study of the 
sacred text. Professor Schultens was the first to apply 
himself to the Hebrew cognate languages, especially to 
the Arabic. The critical works of Mill and of Bengel 
found their way, in 1707 and 1734, into the Dutch 
universities. John Alberti, inaugurated professor at 
Ley den in 1740, made the Arabic his special branch, 
and in five years' time that study became so popular 
that Valkenaer found it necessary to warn young men 
against yielding too freely to its fascinations. The 
direction of theological taste to another department of 
inquiry increased the indifference to party distinctions. 
Henceforth the terms Voetian and Cocceian became 
more unfi-equent and unimportant. 

The theological tendency toward the study of the 
languages of the Bible had the single unfortunate result 
of increasing that puerile literalism which had appeared 
in only sporadic forms during several preceding cen- 



EXCESSIVE LITERALISM. 



345 



turies. It was the element antagonistic to tlie allegori- 
cal and spiritual interpretation of the text. 

Peter Abrest, the Dutch Ernesti, taught in Gron- 
ingen in 1773. His work on Sacred Criticism as the 
lest Safeguard of Theology showed the value he at- 
tached to a thorough grammatical and historical study 
of the Scriptures. His labors were in harmony with 
the long-standing literal interpretation of the text, 
though he would elucidate scientifically what had pre- 
viously been treated mystically. Even before the 
Reformation, the Dutch theologians were preeminently 
textual in their habits of study, and in subsequent 
times they built up their systematic and polemical 
theology by the stress laid upon the " words " of the 
inspired volume. 

Nowhere was the proverb " Every heretic has his 
letter"^ so common and yet so true as in Holland. 
The old quartos we have received from the seventeenth 
and former half of the eighteenth centuries will ever 
remain marvels of literalism gone mad. They were 
gotten up like a geometry, with theorems and proposi- 
tions, followed by a lengthy array of texts transcribed 
without one word of comment. The sermons published 
at that time were divided and subdivided, their appear- 
ance being similar to a page of a dictionary. They 
were interlarded with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew letters 
and figures of various sizes, all being literal quotations 
from the Bible, and proving nothing except that the 
preacher had made free use of his Concordance. The 
consequence of so much textual citation in books and 
sermons was the increased popularity of theology. 

The systematic works of the seventeenth century 
were familiar to the masses. What was said of the 

* " Jedere Ketterheeffc z.yn Letter." 



346 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



theological disputes of the third century, that bakers^ 
and shoemakers' shops reechoed the words ^ liomoousian ' 
and ^ homoiousian^- might be applied to the period of 
which we speak. Even now, there exists in Holland 
a remarkably popular acquaintance with theology. 
" I have seen," says a clergyman, " fishermen who could 
pass examination for licentiate's orders at one of your 
American schools, and beat the best of the candidates 
in the handy use of texts and definitions." ^ The de- 
scendants of the Dutch settlers in the United States 
are still familiar with Brokel ; while if you ask any 
Hollander what he thinks of John '1 Marck's Marroro 
of Divinity^ he will prol)ably indicate very soon that 
he has committed tiearly the whole of it to memory. 
Francken's Kernel of Divinity is equally well-known 
to the masses, for he belonged to the Voetian party. 
He was eminently practical and ascetical. He was not 
without a vein of mysticism, as may be inferred by the 
title of one of his works : " Earnest Request of the | 
Bridegroom Jesus Christ to the Church of Laodicea to 
celebrate the Royal Marriage Feast with Himr 

During the entire period, dating back to the Synod | 
of Dort, there was an undercurrent of Rationalism, 
which, though sometimes daring to make its appear- 
ance, observed in general the strictest secrecy. Cai-te- 
sianism made it bolder for a time, and in party strug- 
gles it ventured to take sides. But the keen eye which 
the church ever turned toward heresy made it timid. 
Yet it was a power which was only waiting for a strong 

^Extract from a letter of P. J, Hoedemaker, dated September, 1864. 
The correspondence of this accomplished scholar, who was for some 
time in connection with the University of Utrecht and in intimate rela- 
tions with the best minds of Holland, has been an invaluable help in the 
preparation of the Chapters on Dutch Theology. 



BALTHAZAE BEKKER. 



347 



ally in order to make open war upon the institutions 
whicli the heroes of Holland had wrested from Philip 
II. of Spain. 

Balthazar Bekker, " a man who feared neither man 
nor devil," was the first Rationalist in the Dutch 
church. He was a disciple of Descartes and an ardent 
lover of natural science, particularly of astronomy. He 
published a work on Comets, in which he combated the 
old notions, prevalent among his countrymen, that a 
comet was always the precursor of heresies and all 
manner of evils, and that it should be made the occasion 
for a general call to prayer and fasting. Bayle, of Rot- 
terdam, a reputed atheist, harmonized with Bekker. 
Bekker separated between the sphere of reason and 
that of religion. Whenever they meet each other it 
should be as friends and co-workers. Religion has 
greater dignity, but that gives it no right to disregard 
the authority of reason. When the Scriptures speak 
in an unnatural way of natural things, it is high 
time for the operation of reason. This idea led to 
the accommodation-theory, which, applied to the doc- 
trine of spirits in his book, Tlie World Bewitched 
(1691), resulted in Bekker's excommunication. His 
Cartesianism, which had tauo:ht him to distino^aish so 
rigidly between the two "substances," matter and 
spirit, as to deny all action of the one upon the other, 
led him to assert that spirits, whether good or bad, 
have no influence upon the bodies of men. The Jews 
ascribed all exertion of power to angels, through whom 
God wo]'ked mediately. Jesus adapted himself to these 
ideas of his times. 

Bekker loved to trace all spirit-stories to some 
plausible origin, and then to hold them up to the ridi- 
cule of the masses. To give substantial proof of his 



348 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



disbelief in all spiritual influence, lie passed many 
nights in graveyards, on whicli occasions lie manifested 
a sacrilegious hardihood, which, besides making hini 
the wonder of his time, could only be accounted for by 
supposing that he kept up secret correspondence with 
the devil. " For," reasoned the Dutch theologians, " is 
not all this one of Satan's tricks to make us believe that 
he does not exist, so that he may capture us unawares?" 
On account of Bekker's acknowledged merit, the gov- 
vernment took his part, and at his death paid his salary 
to his famDy. Voltaire said of him : " He was a very 
good man, a great enemy of the devil and of an eternal 
hell. ... I am persuaded that if there ever existed 
a devil, and he had read Bekker's World Bewitched^ 
he would never have forgiven the author for having so 
prodigiously insulted him." In the library at Utrecht 
there are ten quarto volumes containing reviews of this 
book, in which Bekker's personal appearance, said to 
have been very unprepossessing, receives a goodly por- 
tion of the censure. His body was believed by his 
contemporaries to be a most excellent portrait of the 
de^dl himself. 

Professor Roell, of Franeker University, started from 
the Cocceian principle of freedom of thought. In his 
inaugural address, he announced it as his opinion, that 
Scriptures cannot be interpreted in any safe way except 
by the dictates of reason ; that reason is the grand in- 
strument by which we arrive at a knowledge of all 
truth ; and that it is the great authority for the deter- 
mination of all theoretical and practical religion. This 
author is best known to theologians by his ideas on the 
sonship of Christ. He held that Christ could not be 
a son, for then there would be a time when he came 
LQto being from nonentity. The term " son " could not 



GEOWTH OF EATIONALISM. 



349 



signify unity of essence with the Father. " Brother " 
would be a more correct word. The only sense in 
which Christ could be son was as the divine ambas- 
sador. These assumptions brought upon Koell the 
charge that he was a Socinian and an Arminian. His 
principal opponent was Vitringa. 

Rationalistic tendencies increased in both number 
and force in proportion as the church decreased in the 
zeal which it had possessed at the close of the Cocceian 
and Voetian controversy by virtue of the immigration 
of the exiled Huguenots of France. 

Van Os, of Zwolle, attacked the accepted covenantal 
theory, and the doctrine of immediate imputation. The 
latter was a mere scholastic opinion, not accepted among 
the doctrines of the church, but yet maintained by the 
people as a requisite of orthodoxy. Having gone thus 
far, Van Os proceeded to deny a form of infralapsarian- 
ism, which was termed "justification from eternity." 
Many prominent but bigoted minds, having long enter- 
tained these ultra ideas he was endeavoring to refute, 
and some having gone so far as to attempt their intro- 
duction into a revised edition of the confession of faith, 
Van Os was censured for heresy. But he took the first 
opportunity to preach the Protestant doctrine that 
every one had the right to test the church- creed by the 
word of God. In the opinion of the people this course 
amounted to a total renunciation of the creed, and he 
was accordingly dismissed. Another dispute, which 
created attention and attracted the suspicion of the 
watchful church, was on toleration. All who dared to 
defend even the word, were stigmatized as unpardonable 
heretics, for Voltaire had just written in its favor. 
Pastor De Cock placed himself in danger of excommuni- 
cation because he was so rash as to advocate it. He 

24 



350 



mSTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



was only rescued by the interference of the government^ 
and by luckily publishing that he distinguished be- 
tween Christian and ecclesiastical toleration. 

There were controversies concerning minor points 
of doctrine, yet amid them all it was very perceptible 
that there was a wel] -organized disposition to break 
through the stringent rules of order, and escape from 
the control of the vigilant guardians of the church. 
But whoever departed a hair's breadth from the doc- 
trinal system laid down in the confession of faith was 
charged with skepticism. Van der Marck's employ- 
ment of a single term cost him his professorship. But 
he was afterward restored, and died in 1800. Kleman 
wrote a book, in 1774, on the Oonnection between Grace 
and Duty^ in which he held that the right use of those 
intellectual and spiritual gifts which God has imparted 
to us is the condition of his further blessings. He was 
compelled to retract his heresy. Ten Broek, of Rot- 
terdam, considered only the death of Christ expiator}', 
while his colleagues wished the same to be said of every 
act of his life. Because that rash theologian ventured 
to use the word " world," in John iii. 16, in its broadest 
sense instead of circumscribing it to " the world of the 
elect," he had the choice either to recant or give up 
his office. The government interfered and saved him. 

But while all these influences were at work in the 
church of Holland, a still stronger current was setting 
in from England. The impolitic ecclesiastical rigor bo- 
came an enemy to truth, and contributed powerfully to 
the development of Rationalism. Never have church 
and state presented a more complete contrast. The 
government of Holland was the most liberal in the 
world, but the ecclesiastical authorities have not been 
surpassed in bigotry during the whole history of Prot- 



ENGLISH DEISTS IN HOLLAND. 



351 



estantism. Holland was the refage and Lome of tlie 
exile of every land wlio could succeed in planting Hs 
feet upon her dyke-shores. But the church of that 
country was so illiberal that the use of a term in any 
other than the accepted sense was a sufficient ground 
of excommunication. 

The intimate relations in which Holland stood to 
England by the accession of William and Mary to the 
British throne afforded an opportunity for the import- 
ation of English Deism. Nowhere on the Continent 
was that system of skepticism so extensively propagated 
as among the Dutch. The Deists took particular pains 
to visit Holland, and were never prouder than when 
told that their works w^ere read by their friends across 
the North Sea. On the other hand, Holland supplied 
England with the best editions of the classics then 
published in Europe, some of which are still unsur- 
passed specimens of typography. 

The works of Hobbes appeared in Amsterdam in 
1668, his De Owe having been issued as early as 1647. 
Locke's Epistle on Toleration was translated into Dutch 
in 1689, while his Essay on the Human Understanding 
was rendered not only into that language, but also into 
the French. Collins and Chubb were read scarcely less 
by the Hollander than by the Englishman. Locke 
spent seven years in Holland, and Toland studied two 
years in Leyden. Shaftesbury resided among the 
Dutch during the year 1691, and made a second visit 
in 1699. The adversaries of the Deists enjoyed the 
same privilege, and did not hesitate to improve it. 
Burnet became a great favorite in Holland. Lardner, 
who spent three years there, was well known to the 
reading circles, for his works were translated into their 
tongue. Lyttleton, Clarke, Sherlock, and Bentley re- 



352 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



ceived no less favor. Leland enjoyed a cordial intro 
duction by the pen of Professor Bonnet, while Tillotson 
had his readers and admirers among even the boatmen 
in the sluggish canals of Ley den, Rotterdam, and Am- 
sterdam. But the Deists of England gained more favor 
in Holland than their opponents were able to acquire. 
The former were bold, while the latter were timid and 
compromising. Consequently a brood of domestic 
Deists sprang up, who borrowed all their capital from 
their English fathers. Patot, a follower of Lord Her- 
bert of Cherbury, refeiTcd to Christ by asking, What 
do we trouble ourselves about the words of a car- 
penter ? " He wrote his jFable of the JBees^ to ridicule 
the doctrines of the atonement and resurrection. 

But as English Deism was reinforced by the atheism 
of France before the invasion of Germany by either, so 
did the same copartnership take place in reference to 
Holland. 

The works of the French skeptics were as copiously 
distributed in Holland as at home. Many of them were 
issued by Dutch publishing houses. Des Sandes pub- 
lished his Reflections on Great Men^ in Amsterdam ; 
Toussaint's Morals gained the honor of more than one 
edition in the same city ; and De Prades, who had been 
condemned by the Sorbonne on account of the thesis 
by which he tried to gain his baccalaureate, published 
his Defense in Amsterdam in 1753. It was in this 
work that he compared the miracles of Jesus to those 
of ^sculapius. Hase says that it was in Holland, and 
not in London, that the Systenie de la Nature first came 
to light. Rousseau's ilmile^ which had been burned by 
the sheriffs in France, had the largest liberty afforded 
it beyond the northern frontier. The Dutch would not 
be sated with Volney until they had published and 
read three editions of his works. 



COLD TKEATMENT OF VOLTAIEE. 



353 



Voltaire was very popular througliout tlie country. 
A number of periodicals arose, having tlie avowed 
object of disseminating tlie views of bimself and Ms 
friends wherever the Dutch language was spoken. La 
Mettrie, driven from France, here found a home. Vol- 
taire barely escaped the Bastille by fleeing thither, 
though when he left the land which had given him 
shelter, he bade it the graceful farewell : " Adieu canals, 
ducks, and common people ! I have seen nothing 
among you that is worth a fig ! " But Voltaire had 
cause to cherish no very pleasant feelings toward Hol- 
land. Her great men had received him coldly. His 
excessive vanity was never so deeply wounded as by 
the sober Dutchmen. Desiring to make the acquaint- 
ance of Boerhaave, the most celebrated physician in 
Europe, he called upon him, stating that he " wished 
to see him." Instead of becoming rapturous at the 
Frenchman's compliment, the plain old Leyden burgher 
coolly replied : " Oh, sit as long as you please, sir, and 
look at me ; but excuse me if I go on with my writing." 
On offering one of his philosophical books to Professor 
Gravesande, the latter returned it to Voltaire in a few 
days with only this comment : " You are a poet, sir ; 
a very goo'd poet, indeed ! " 

The chief disaster resulting from the French skep- 
tical writings was not so much the skeptical indoctrina- 
tion of the people as the general diffusion of a light and 
frivolous indifference to all religion. Through the in- 
fluence of France the Dutch became enslaved to vicious 
customs, taste, modes of thought, and conversation. 
The etiquette of the Parisians was domesticated among 
their northern imitators. The works published in 
Holland were mere reproductions from the French, and 
many of them were written in that language. The 



354 



HISTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



simplicity, trutlifalness, and attacliment to old forms, 
whicli had so long existed, gave place to a general spirit 
of innovation. The reverential and determined spirit 
that had enabled their forefathers to gain their inde- 
pendence was no longer ap]3arent in the children. Lib- 
eral to a fault, Holland was now paying the penalty of 
her excessive hospitality. Sensuality and supei'ficial 
epicureanism were at once the taste and the destruction 
of many of the young minds of the country. 

When the people of Holland began to awaken to 
their condition, they were seized with a spirit akin to 
despair. The coldness of the church amid all the at- 
tempts to destroy the basis of her faith appeared as the 
chill of death. When the learned societies offered a 
prize in 1801 for the best work on The Oause and Cure 
of Religious Apathy^ they could not find one to crown 
with their medal. Holland, finding herself unable to 
keep pace with the quick step of French recklessness 
and irreligion, bethought herself of finding refuge in 
Gallic politics. " Our people," says Bronsveld, " then 
became a second-hand on the great dial of the French 
nation." Old men are now living who have not forgot- 
ten those days when all distinctions vanished, when 
the only name heard was "burgher," and when the 
skeptical and daring favorites of the people obtain- 
ed seats in the national assembly. Religion was 
driven from the elementary schools and also from the 
universities. The chairs of philosophy and theology 
were united, for it was enjoined that no doctrine 
should be taught in future but natural theology and 
ethics. The Sabbath was abolished. 

Then came Napoleon Bonaparte. He presented his 
plea, was received with open arms, and returned his 
thanks by draining the country of its treasures. It was 



DELIYEEANCE FEOM FEANCE. 



355 



only when the people felt the physical sting of his wars, 
and saw the indescribable moral dearth pervading their 
country, that they resolv^ed to go back to the old paths 
and the good way, and to abandon all deference to 
French examples. On the occasion of the great jubilee 
of 1863, which commemorated deliverance from the 
yoke of France, there was heard throughout Holland 
but one note of joy : " Thanks be unto the Lord who 
hath delivered the nation from the ruin which it had 
prepared for itself, and into which infidelity had 
thi-ust it ! " 



CHAPTEE XV. 



HOLLAND CONTINUED: THE NEW THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS, 
AND THE GREAT CONTROVERSY BETWEEN ORTHO- 
DOXY AND RATIONALISM. 

The commencement of the new era in tlie religion 
and politics of Europe was the restoration of peace after 
the battle of Waterloo. Wherever the French bayonet 
had won territory to the sceptre of Napoleon, it opened 
a new and unobstructed sway for the propagation of 
the skepticism taught by the followers of Voltaire. But 
the same blow that repulsed tJie armies of France 
produced an equally disastrous effect upon her infidelity. 
A sincere desire began to animate many persons living 
in the subjugated countries that, with the restoration of 
their nationality, there should also be the return of the 
pure faith of their fathers. 

Holland had passed through nineteen years of hu- 
miliating subjugation, and she did not possess religious vi- 
tality enough to take full advantage of the rare oppor- 
tunity presented by the peace of 1814. The people 
turned from France to Germany, and thought they found 
relief in the Rationalism of Semler and Paulus. 

Orthodoxy was inactive. The Mennonites had be- 
come so mystical that they rather aided than arrested 
the incoming error. All the Socinian elements gained 
strength. The discipline of the church was exercised 



THE KEW HYMNS. 



357 



with such laxity that immorality was unrebuked. The 
Constitution of 1816, by its reunion of church and 
state, threw a great weight in the balance with Ration- 
alism. William of Orange wielded a power over the 
church which he dared not exercise upon any other 
corporation. The Synods and Classes were driven back 
to forms, and allowed almost no freedom. Then came 
the notorious Pastoral Declaration, established by the 
Synod of the Hague in 1816, which no longer required 
of candidates for the ministry an unqualified sub- 
scription to the ancient Confessions. Their adherence 
to them was to be " in so far as " these formularies of 
faith agree with the word of God, not " because " they 
thus agree. That little change — quatenus substituted 
for quia — cast off all restrictions from the future 
preaching of the Dutch clergy. The orthodox preach- 
ers became very indignant at the official measure, and 
a bitter theological controversy arose. 

Previous to this outbreak, a rupture had occurred 
upon the introduction of the new hymns, ordered by 
the Synod of North Holland in 1796. When presented 
for approval in 1807, they were violently rejected by 
the orthodox, who held that the version of Psalms 
which they had been singing many years was all that 
was needed. Besides, there was a perceptible Rational- 
ism in many of the new hymns. They were foreign to 
the Dutch heart. Such a one as 

" Yonder will I praise the Friend, 
Who here has shown me truth," 

was not likely to elicit a response from those who de* 
sired an improved religious spirit. To fill up the cup of 
their misfortunes, the use of the hymns was made ob« 
ligatory. But they hoped that when the Prince of 



358 



HISTOEY OF EATIOI^ALISM. 



Orange came back, lie would restore the venerated 
Psalms. Yet on his return he not only issued an official 
recognition of the new Hymn-Book, but expressed his 
warm approval of it. The congregation had no choice 
left but to refuse to sing altogether, or to use but one 
and the same hymn from one Sabbath to another. 

The Revival and the Secession. There was an un- 
der-current of deep religious feeling among the masses 
which was unsupported by theological education. The 
lectures in the universities were similar to those delivei'ed 
by the old school of German Supernaturalists. The prev- 
alent orthodoxy was moderate and equivocal at best. 
Not much hope of awakening could be derived from it. 
The Bible was held to be the supreme authority ; the 
historical chai*acter of its accounts was confessed ; and 
the infallibility of its communications was maintained. 
Miracles, and prophetical and apostolical inspiration were 
accepted. But there was a neglect of the nature of 
this authority, together with a manifest indifference 
to the paramount value of all the great doctrinal pos- 
sessions of the church. There was no scientific defense 
of the pillars of faith, and no attempt to discuss the true 
ground of miracles, and their inherent accordance with 
divine laws. Christian philosophy was totally ignored. 
Such natural theology as had been produced by the 
school of Leibnitz and Wolff, and more recently improved 
by the moral arguments of Kant, was the chief object of 
study, and had been made obligatory since the restora- 
tion of the Dutch universities in 1816. There was a 
general compromise between revelation and the old 
philosophy.^ Supernaturalism was stagnant, and gave 
no promise of future progress. 

^ D. Ohantepie de la Saussaye. La Criae Beligieuse en Hollande. 
Souvenirs et Impressions^ pp. 24-29. 



THE NEW SCHOOL. 



359 



While the church of Holland was in this deplorable 
condition, God raised up a few men to be the instru- 
ments of new life. They were endowed with great tal- 
ents, moral heroism, and a steady purpose to elevate 
every department of ecclesiastical organization. The 
Holy Spirit accompanied their labors. The leaders of 
the group were Bilderdyk, Da Costa, Dr. Capadose,' 
and subsequently Groen Van Prinsterer. 

The first stood at the head of the modern school of 
Dutch poetry, and was one of the greatest poets ever 
produced by Holland. His conceptions were vivid, his 
style impassioned, his diction unequaled by any of his 
predecessors, and his moral life irreproachable. Having 
a conservative mind, he opposed each indication of rev- 
olution with every weapon at command. He was pro- 
foundly learned in the classics, history, and jurispru- 
dence. Apart from all his efforts for the religious 
awakening of the people, he was the representative of 
the old Holland nationality. An ardent despiser of 
the French spirit, imparted by the fatal principles of 
1789, he was equally opposed to the Rationalism of Ger- 
many. He believed that if new life were kindled in 
the Dutch heart, it could not be derived from without, 
but by a return to the pure teachings of the fathers of 
the Reformation in Holland. 

Da Costa and Dr. Capadose were Jews. The 
former looked upon the condition of the country from 
the Israelitish standpoint developed in his Israel and 
the Nations, He believed in the millennium, and saw in 
it the divine cheerfulness of history, and the relief from 
surrounding evils. He is well described by one of his 
countrymen as " the Israelite who raised himself above 
the church of the Gentiles ; the Israelite who testifies 
against this church; the Israelite who announces the 



360 



mSTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 



glory of this church." He was a popular and spirited 
poet, excelling even his friend Bilderdyk in the lyrical 
character of his verses. He hated Rationalism in every 
form, and resisted whatev^er would interpose any au- 
thority between the conscience of man and the word of 
God. His Israelitish view made him reject the second- 
ary authority of the confessions of faith, and did not 
permit him to attribute anything more than a relative 
value to the church of the Gentiles, " the church before 
the millennium," 

Groen Van Prinsterer appeared at a time when the 
revival had taken definite shape, but he attached himself 
to its interests and contributed more than any one else to 
its development. He is one of those decided characters 
who are mentioned by friends and enemies with great 
animation. Studiously rejecting the individuality taught 
him by the school of Vinet, and reticent of his personal 
opinions, he incurred the animadversions of some of 
his warmest admirers. Being a man of continual lit- 
erary and political activity, he took part in all the im- 
portant movements of his times. He was the Guizot of 
Holland. Though banished for a time from his seat in 
the States General by the Catholics, Revolutionists, and 
Rationalists, he did not intermit his labors to lead back 
the masses to evangelical piety. His powerful influ- 
ence was given in favor of home missions and similar 
agencies. He comprehended the revival, in all its 
scope, more clearly than any one else. He says of it 
that "it was neither Calvinistic, nor Lutheran, • nor 
Mennonite, but Christian. It did not raise for its stand- 
ard the orthodoxy of Dort, but the flag of the Reforma- 
tion, the word of God. And though it found the doc- 
trine of salvation admirably expressed in our symbolical 
books, appreciated a rule of education so conformable 



EEUOTON OF CHEISTIAiq- rEIEia)S. 



361 



to the Holy Scriptures, and opposed tlie doctrines of 
tlie church and the duty of her ministers to the usurpa- 
tions of Eationalism, it never thought of accepting and 
imposing the absurd and literal yoke of formularies 
with an absurd and puerile anxiety. A spirit of Chris- 
tian fraternity predominated over the old desires." 

The direct associated result of the revival was the 
Reunion of Christian Friends. It was presided over by 
Groen Van Prinsterer, and held semi-annual sessions in 
Amsterdam from 1845 to 1854. Its monthly journal, 
The Union^ or Christian Voices^ was conducted by 
Pastor Heldring, a warm-hearted man ^\\\o made him- 
self illustrious in the annals of beneficence by his 
labors for home missions, by his foundation of an asylum 
for little neglected girls, and by similar charitable works. 

Other pastoral associations sprang up in consequence 
of the Dew life, but some of them failed in a few years be- 
cause of the want of a common symbol of faith. Groen 
Van Prinsterer hailed with joy every indication of Chris- 
tian unity. He hoped that by this unity the church 
might be built up in its holy faith. From 1850 to 1855 
he edited The Netherlander^ a political and ecclesiastical 
review. It was in this periodical that he eulogized the 
revivals of other countries, and ranked the leaders of 
them among the greatest ornaments of history. The 
labors of the French and Swiss theologians, MM. Bost, 
Malan, Merle dAubigne, Gaussen, Grandpierre, and 
Monod find in him a most appreciative admirer.^ 

' Ds Costa, in his biography of Bilderdyk, enumerates other partici- 
pants in the revival in the Dutch Church ; among whom were the two 
brothers Yan Hogendorp, Nicolaas Carbasius, J. T. Bodel, Kyeuhuis, 
Brugmans, Elout, Ran Yan Gameren, Baron Yan Wassanaer, Willem de 
Olercq, the poet, and author of a work on the Influence of Southern Litera- 
ture on that of Holland; Yan der Kemp, author of an admirable Biogra- 
phy of Maurice of Nassau ; and Koenen, author of an historical work on 
the Refugees in Holland, 



362 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



The movement inaugurated by Bilderdyk, Da Costa, 
and Capadose led to an important secession from the 
Church of Holland. There were men who saw the ne- 
cessity of revival on a large scale, but in their zeal fi)r 
Confessionalism, they went far ahead of their leaders. 
Their cry was, ''Let us leave Babel, and build up a new 
Church." De Cock and Scholte were the first to sound 
the note of secession. They were joined by such men 
as Brummelkamp, Van Reeh, Gezelle, and Van Velsen. 
This party rallied around the old Calvinistic symbols, 
and De Cock stood in their van. As early as 1829, 
when he became preacher in the little village of Ulrura, 
he distinguished himself for his zealous ministry. People 
came from a distance of eighteen miles to hear his sermons. 
He soon indoctrinated them so thoroughly that they 
would no longer permit their children to be baptized 
by '' unbelievers." This brought him immediately into 
conflict with the rules of the church. Two pamphlets 
appeared against him, which he answered in his Defense 
of the True Reformed Doctrine^ and of the True Re- 
formed ; or^ the Sheepcot of Christ attached hy two 
Wolves. Another pamphlet appeared with his appro- 
val, in which the new hymns were called " Siren's 
SongsP The result was that he was suspended, and in 
1835 excommunicated. In the same year he published 
his curious book, entitled "The so-called Evangelical : 
Hymns, the Eyeball of the misguided and deceived ! 
Multitude in the Synodical-Eeformed Church : Yes, of ' 
some Children of God, in their blindness, and while they > 
have become drunk by the wine of their whoredom, i 
tested, weighed, and found wanting: Yes, opposed to i 
all our forms and doctrines, and the word of God ; by 
H. De Cock, under the Cross because of Christ." 

The expulsion of De Cock attracted many new 



THE SEPAEATISTS. 



363 



friends to his standard. At the close of 1834 a Sepa- 
ration Act was devised at Uh*um, by which all his adhe- 
rents dissolved connection with the Church. They were 
said to number eighty thousand, but it is probable that 
the estimate was an exaggeration. By request of the 
Synod, the Separatists were prosecuted by the govern- 
ment, who used as a pretext an article in the Code Napo- 
leon^ which forbade the assembly of more than twenty 
persons for worship without the consent of the civil 
authorities. They were defended by many lawyers of 
the school of Bilderdyk. Foremost of the number was 
Groen Van Prinsterer, " the conscience of the Legislative 
Assembly, the right arm of religion in the State, and 
the defender of the principle of religion in the school." 
They were assailed by mobs who called them the "J^ew 
Lights." 

The schism was but a moderate success. What 
promised to be a great and. honorable church, like the 
Free Church of Scotland, became, in 1869, the Christian 
Reformed Church, which has about three hundred min- 
isters and one hundred thousand members. It did not 
identify itself with scientific progress, and paid little re- 
gard to education. Any man of piety and utterance 
could become a preacher in one of its pulpits. It has at 
present a Seminary at Kampen, with a small faculty of 
six professors. Its course of study will compare favor- 
ably wdth that of any institution in the United States. 
The young men of talent, who now grow up in its fold, 
are prejudiced against its ultraism, and stand ready at 
any moment to unite with some new movement which 
will combine the piety of their fathers and the scientific 
demands of the present day. The radical defects of its 
initial steps were narrow-mindedness and fanaticism. 
The Separatists too much ignored the elements of good 



364 



UISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



in the mother-church. They could have done better 
service by casting all their influence with Bilderdyk and 
his followers in the Church, instead of arraying them- 
selves against it, and becoming an enemy from wdthout. 
Some of the leaders have organized colonies, which weak- 
ened the power and prestige of those who remained at 
home. The emigrants came to America and settled 
mostly in the Western States, especially in Michigan. 

The Groningen School. Each of the two tenden- 
cies prevalent in the Church of Holland had its decided 
defects. While one was zealous for theological training, 
it was nevertheless cold, indifferent and Rationalistic. 
While the other was burning with religious fervor and a 
practical evangelism, it was deficient in culture, scientific 
grasp, and a capacity to meet the wants of the time. 
There was a call for a third party, which would unite 
the best features of the two others, and develop them 
into a new progressive power. Hence arose the Gronin- 
gen School. Its immediate origin was the attempt of 
Professor Van Heusde to modernize Platonism and 
adapt it to the nineteenth century. Hofstede de Groot, 
Pareau, and Muurling were its leaders. Its organ was 
the periodical entitled, Truth in Love, 

The characteristic of this school is, that there is 
in human nature a divine element which needs develop- 
ment in order to enable humanity to reach its destina- 
tion. This destination is conformity to God. All re- 
ligions have aimed and worked at the same problem, 
but Christianity has solved it in the highest and purest 
mannei'. Still, there is only a difference in degree 
between that and other religions. This is the germ 
of what the Groningens call the " Evangelical Catholic 
Theology." Conformity to God, they say, has been 
reached in Jesus Christ ; but Plato, Zoroaster, and Con- 



THE GEONINGET^^ SCHOOL, 



365 



fucius strove to attain to it. They failed because 
their task was too great for the means at command. 
God has fulfilled the desire of man, whom he had 
prepared for salvation by sending perfection embodied 
in Christ. We may not attach ourselves to any system 
or effort as absolutely true or good, nor condemn any 
as utterly false. All knowledge and arts are related 
to religion. They refine man and aid him in his eman- 
cipation fi'om whatever is sinful and sensual. 

The correspondence of ideas between Hofstede de 
Groot and Pareau was so intimate that they published 
a joint work on dogmatic theology, which contains a 
complete exposition of the principles of the Groningen 
School. Jesus Christ constitutes the centre of reli- 
gion. In him we see what is God, what is man, the 
relations of one to the other, and how we can be so de- 
livered from sin and its power as to become God's 
children by faith and love. In Christ's death we find 
love even for sinners, and learn that suffering is not an 
evil. In his glorification we perceive the aims and re- 
sults of suffering. In him is the Theanthropos, not 
God and man, but God in man. There is but one 
nature in Christ, the divine-human. Jesus being the 
focal point of the interests of man, we must know, firsts 
what he is outside of us, objectively; second^ how he 
appears within us, subjectively. To know Christ we 
need the exegetical study of that preparation of man 
for Christ, which is furnished by the Old Testament. 
The New Testament is the fulfillment. The latter con- 
tains the sayings of Jesus and the conclusions of the 
Apostles. The writers of the Scriptures were not infal- 
lible, though they did not often err. Eevelation is con- 
tinued in the history of the church, which is the third 
principle of development. Augustine stood higher and 



366 



mSTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



went further than Paul, Luther than Augustine. If our 
development be partial and imperfect we must go back 
and begin anew. 

The Groningen School is distinguished for its ethical 
system. How does Christ live in us? This is the 
question it proposes to answer. There is a distinction 
between the nature of man, which is divine, and his 
condition, which is sinful. Sin is the point where man, 
naisusing his liberty, surrenders himself to his sensuous 
nature, which is not sinful in itself. God educates man 
by Jesus Christ in three ways ; first^ by revelation of 
truth ; second^ by manifestation of love ; thirds by edu- 
cation of the church. The high aim of the church is 
to lead man to a consciousness of the unity of his origin 
and destiny, and to bring all to a knowledge and love 
of Christ, and of God in Christ. Christ was educated 
before his life on earth for the work designed for him, 
and he established the church by leaving his glory and 
leading a life full of love and truth. His death was the 
highest manifestation of his love and truth, for by it he 
showed God to man, and man to himself. His resurrec- 
tion makes our hope of eternal life a certainty. 

In the Groningen system there is no place for the 
doctrine of the Trinity. The influence of the sacra- 
ments is merely external, while Calvinism and the 
" blood-theology " are subjects of abhorrence. It would 
be unjust to place the Groningens beside the German 
Rationalists, though the influence of both has been 
similar. The former class, like the latter, have one fatal 
defect ; they consider sin a mere inconvenience. They 
hold that man needs a Teacher but not a Redeemer, 
since all sinners will be eventually holy and happy. 
The Groningen tendency, as related to Dutch theol- 
ogy, is similar to that applied by Channing to the 



THE LEYDEN SCHOOL. 



367 



orthodoxy of the American cTiurcli. Human nature 
is declared worthy of our attention and development. 
True humanity is pure piety. God can be found 
everywhere, even in the heart of man. The philosophir 
cal theology of Schleiermacher has stamped the Gron- 
ingen system with its own signet. They both proceed 
fi'om the same starting-point, — not reason, but the heart. 
Theirs is the religion of feeling. 

The Groningens have done important service to the 
Dutch church. Their elevation of ethics to a proper 
position in theological instruction has been a national 
boon, while their unwavering zeal for the education of 
the masses and of children will always remain a monu- 
ment to their honor. While they were the first to 
establish Sunday Schools in Holland, they have given a 
new impulse to missions. They defend religion against 
skepticism, and picture the latter in all its deformity. 

But the Groningen system has almost totally failed 
of its object. It did not unite the zeal of the fathers 
with the science of the present day. Though opposed 
to Eationalism, it is more negative than positive, and 
is less distinguished for its doctrines than for its ab- 
sence of them. It claims that the church neither pos- 
sesses nor needs doctrines. Therefore, it destroys the 
line of demarcation between the various confessions and 
that confessional Latitudinarianism, which is the direct 
offspring of the destructive principles of the Rational- 
ism and Liberalism of the eighteenth century. 

The School of Leydei^. In no theological system 
had any satisfaction been afforded to the joint feeling 
of attachment to the old confessions and of a desire to 
develop them in conformity with the requirements of the 
age. Many rejected the Groningen school because it 
depreciated the formularies of the church, and did not 



368 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



know how to value tlieir scope or to elaborate them 
for immediate usefulness. The Leyden school filled 
the vacancy. Taking its origin in a disposition to 
establish a connection between the faith of the Re- 
formers and our own, its aim has been to unite the old 
traditions with the new opinions. 

The father and expounder of the School of Leyden 
was Professor Scholten, formerly of Franeker, but latei- 
of Leyden. He is well known as the author of his- 
torico-critical introductions, and of a History of Phi- 
losophy, but his reputation has been acquired mainly by 
his Doctrines of the Reformed Qliurch^ a work of great 
clearness, profound erudition, and romantic interest. 
As the reader peruses its fascinating pages he is bound 
by a spell which he cannot easily break. The remark 
of Dugald Stewart, on reading Edwards On the Willy 
occurs to him with peculiar appositeness, " There is a 
fallacy somewhere, but the devil only can find it." 

There is, according to Scholten, a distinction be- 
tween the principles and dogmas of a church. The 
former are the norm and touch-stone of the latter. The 
Reformers were not always logical in their reasonings, 
and have left an unfinished task for the present 
day. Man arrives at a knowledge of the truth by 
the Holy Scriptures, but they must not be under- 
stood as containing the only revelation from God; 
he also j^e veals himself to the world through the 
hearts of all believers. The Bible is the source of the 
original religion. There is a difference between the 
Scriptures and the word of God. The latter is what 
God reveals in the human spirit concerning his wUljl 
and himself. The writing down of the communication 
is purely human ; therefore, the Bible cannot be called 
a revelation. We know, by the testimony of the 



scholten's opinions. 



369 



Spirit, tliat God's word in tlie Scriptures is truth. Bat 
Scriptural authority must not be accepted, — a liberty 
wliicli would apply to a Jewish but not to a Chris, 
tian age. Jesus and the apostles did not compel men 
to accept truth by a proclamation of authority, but by 
an irresistible moral power. Even in times when the 
liberty and individuality of faith have been lost in the 
church, there were men who did not answer the ques- 
tion, " Why do you believe ? by saying, " Because the 
Church has spoken ; " but by appealing to their interior 
consciousness. 

Historical criticism must be called in, Scholten fur- 
ther held, to confirm the certainty of the facts of revela- 
tion. But the truth of the Christian religion cannot be 
established on this plan. With Eousseau, Lessing, and 
others, he opposed any attempt to make the best his- 
torical grounds the basis of a religious conviction. The 
truth of Scripture is testified by human nature itself, 
which, educated by Christianity, recognizes freely and 
personally the truth of the gospel. The natural faculty 
that performs this high office is reason, not feeling. 
Scripture is the touchstone of the Christianity of a con- 
viction, but not of its truth. The Keformers very proper- 
ly distinguished between a first and secondary authority, 
and allowed themselves complete liberty in their search 
after the origin of the books of Scripture. This was 
not a dangerous experiment, for he who has once come 
to know Christianity as the highest form of religion, 
can never fall into a negative criticism. If the religious 
contents of the Bible find their justification in the in- 
terior consciousness of man, then the question arises, 
" Can human reason attain to the supersensual, or is it 
limited to the sensuous experience ? " The organ of all 
natural knowledge of God is reason ; while its fountain 



370 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



is the physical, intellectual, and moral world. The 
first Adam did not possess that knowledge of God 
which was thoroughly enjoyed by the second. But 
can man attain to the knowledge of God while in a 
sinful condition, and while the light of his reason is 
darkened ? Assuredly he may, for sin does not belong 
to the essence, but to the condition of man. The Re- 
formed theologians built on the acknowledgment that 
Eeligion has her seat in the being of man, and sees in 
the Christian the expression of the reasonable religion. 
The material principle of the Reformed church is the 
doctrine of God's sovereignty and free grace. The 
weakness of the Reformation lay in its inconsistency, 
for it substituted the authority of the letter for that 
of the church. 

Scholten's abhorrence of authority led him to a de- 
nial of miracles. From this point of view he could 
freely join hands with the Rationalists. In his work, 
the Gospel of John, he went so far as to reti-act the favor- 
able opinions formerly expressed concerning that por- 
tion of the New Testament. He was fearlessly assailed 
by Oosterzee, La Saussaye, Da Costa, and other lead- 
ing theologians. Unfortunately he exerted more in- 
fluence over the young theologians of Holland than 
any other Dutch theologian. He was ardently sup- 
ported by Kuenen, the exegete, his colleague at Ley- 
den ; and by Rauenhoff, the ecclesiastical historian. 
We close our estimate of Scholten with a word on his 
opinions of Christianity in general. It is neither super- 
human nor supernatural. It is the highest point of the 
development of human nature itself, and, in this sense, 
it is natural and human in the highest acceptation of 
those terms. It is the mission of science to put man in 



THE EMPIRICAL THEOLOGY. 



371 



a condition to comprehend the divine volume presented 
by Christianity.^ 

The School of Empirical-Moderi^ Theology. The 
two leading representatives of this important branch 
of the more recent Dutch theology are Opzoomer and 
Pierson. The former, a professor in the Univei'sity of 
Utrecht, left the sphere of theological instruction for a 
time, and took a prominent part in political debates in 
order to combat the claims of the anti-revolutionary 
party. He exerted little influence during the first years 
of his professorship in Utrecht, but after his publica- 
tion of a manual of logic. The JRoad of Science^ he had 
a large share in founding the school with which he 
became identified. In this work he maintains that ob- 
servation is the only means of arriving at certainty, 
and that everything that cannot be proved by experi- 
ence is uncertain, and has no right wdthin the domain 
of science. This is the central thought of his whole 
system. 

Pierson stands related to Opzoomer as Mansel does 
to Sir William Hamilton. The son of religious parents, 
he was at first rigidly orthodox. He became pastor of 
the Walloon Church at Rotterdam. His early wiitings 
were touchingly beautiful and attractive, for it was in 
them that he laid open his inner life. But in his later 
woi'ks he assumes the air of the censor and scoffer. He 
w^as long the personal friend of La Saussaye, but, owing 
to doctrinal differences, they parted and later pui'- 
sued different paths. He was an orator of the Amei'- 
ican type. His opinions are elaborated in his two 
works, The Origin of the Modern Tendency^ and the 

^ An article by Scholten on Modern Materialism and its Causes may 
be found in the Progress of Religious Thought in the Protestant Church 
of France. London: 1861, pp. 10-48. 



372 HiSTOEY or katioxalism. 



Tendency and Life, In tlie latter treatise we learn not 
merely the personal views of Pierson, but the creed 
advocated by all the adherents of the empirical-modern 
theology. 

The New Theology, lie held, has an indisputable 
dght to assume the epithet "modern," in distinction 
from " liberal." The latter term is borne by the Gron- 
ingen school, which always opposes the church -creed. 
The principle of reform has not been fully carried out by 
the Protestants. The Protestant builds his faith on the 
Bible, but on what does he build his faith in the Bible ? 
Is it not the testimony of the Holy Spirit ? He has 
this support only through the Bible. Certain liberal 
theologians, like the orthodox, are extremely illogical 
in their conclusions concerning the word of God. The 
former will not accept verl)al inspiration, yet they 
call the Bible a divine bo(;k, which, fortunately, could 
be no better. Though they laugh at the story of Jonah 
and the whale, they accept every word of Christ, who 
quotes the story. They will not hear of ^present mirac- 
ulous interpositions of providence, but accept some of 
the miracles of the Bible. There are Catholic priests 
who are affability itself, while there are orthodox Prot- 
estants possessed of ultra views. In contrast with all 
these classes stand the heroes of the Modern Theology, 
who possess the " passion for reality," and are endowed 
with the new cosmology of Galileo. 

All true knowledge, argues Pierson, is self-knowl- 
edge. Reality comes to us in the impressions we re- 
ceive of it. I see, I hear ; and whether there is a reality 
outside corresponding to the impression, is a question 
never asked by a reasonable man. One who has a fever 
on a July day complains of cold. The bystanders deny 
his right to say it is cold. Now do they obtain their 



fiekson's opinions. 



373 



riglit from a comj)arison of tlieir impressions witli some- 
thing objective ? JSTo. His knowledge is subjective in 
this sense ; that it arises fr^om sources whicli are in liim 
alone, while theirs is objective, because they compare 
their impressions. Error is not in the impression but 
m the explanation. Man has more than sensual im- 
pressions. We have a faculty whicli brings us into con- 
tact with a spiritual world. The religious man is by 
necessity an anthropomorphist. He claims a personal 
God, a Father, a Eedeemer, an Ideal. We need a sharp 
analysis to see the reflections of the contents of our 
religious feeling. Our mind seeks a conception of God, 
the basis of which must be the idea of the Absolute, 
Infinite Being. The Scriptures must be criticised by 
our reason. The first three gospels, wMch tell us what 
Christ said and did, are not authority for us. Their 
writers are unknown, in the main, and by no means 
original. But exact criticism may succeed in giving us 
a portrait of the Prophet of Galilee. He lived a life 
according to the spirit, and proclaimed a religion such 
as no one before or after him has been able to do. Is 
it not enough that he has glorified humanity, and made 
himself adored as king of humanity, even with a crown 
of thorns upon his brow ? The hearts of men have 
been disclosed to him, and lie has caused to well up 
therefrom streams of love, wliich none can turn aside. 
Is his name not glorious when we think that the peni- 
tence of a Magdalene, and the sorrow of a Peter, are 
flowers which have permanently sprung up from earth 
only after tkat eartli had been drenched by his blood 
and tears ? But the church has made a mythological 
character of Christ. It has contemned the real Jesus 
who stood in opposition to authority and tradition. In 
his name the church has enthroned and glorified this 



374 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



authority. It was not from a system but from a prin- 
ciple tliat lie expected the regeneration of man. We 
have a safe revelation in the world about us. It is 
God's work in and around ourselves. Explore it; 
study yourself and man ; but do it with such a spii'it 
and purpose as Christ possessed. 

Asa specimen of Pierson's style, we give his portrait 
of a good preacher : " All elements are concentrated 
in him in such a way that men will, can, and must lis- 
teu, for attention is as much a state as love. You can- 
not command, but you may deserve it. Paint for hu- 
manity, which, though despised by the formalists, 
terrified by the moralists, and condemned by the Phar- 
isees, is yet the image of him who spoke not of its 
guilt, but of its sickness and sorrow; not of a judgment- 
seat, but of the open arms of the Father ; not of damna- 
tion, but of regeneration. A Holland painter came from 
a foreign land, and painted a Dutch landscape. But 
everybody who saw it, said : * He has been in Italy.' 
So let it be said of every Christian minister, * He has 
been in Galilee, it is the color of Jesus.' " 

The opinions entertained by the defenders of the 
Empirical-Modern Theology have few points of sym- 
pathy with evangelical Christianity. They stand 
above Eationalism, but not opposed to it. The system 
attempts a purification-process of Christian faith. It 
does not break with tradition and doctrine, but, claim- 
ing the privilege of using its own eyes, it rejects the 
authority of both. It does not admit a supernatural 
origin of the Scriptures, but looks with suspicion upon 
many of the accounts contained therein. Taught by the 
philosophy of experience that everything has a natural 
source, even in the world of mind, it finds no room for 
free will. It cherishes a high regard for the individual. 



THE ETHICAL-IREISICAL SCHOOL. 



375 



ity of man, and esteems it wrong to let the particular 
be lost in the universal. It discards any system of 
morals which does not do justice to this individuality. 
Its ethics are deterministic, but not fatalistic. It holds 
that the mysteries of orthodoxy are mystifications 
which insult the thinking man. It claims that its 
doubts are not sinful, for it says : " I have not doubted 
from a wish to doubt." But it furnishes nothing to 
take the place of that which it destroys by its negative 
criticism. This is its fatal weakness. With its prin- 
ciple, " no authority," it attacks the Bible, and finds it 
written neither by the supposed authors nor at the 
alleged dates. It destroys the sanctity of that which 
has become hallowed by our inner experience. It takes 
away Christ, in all his essential attributes, from the 
believer. 

The Ethical-Ieenical School. We have thus far 
seen, in the recent state of theology in Holland, 
few indications of the vigorous progress of evangelical 
truth. But the Ethical-Irenical School, combining the 
principal orthodox minds, stands in manly and pros- 
perous opposition to all pai'ties which possess Ra- 
tionalistic affinities. Chantepie de la Saussaye and 
Professor Van Oosterzee were its leaders. These men 
differed on minor points, but, in general, they were 
harmonious co-workers against skepticism in every 
form. They stand in the front rank of Dutch theo- 
logians, the former having no superior as a thinker, and 
the latter none as an orator. 

La Saussaye was not a popular writer. His style 
is compact and his arguments intricate. He was some- 
times eloquent, however, and a close thinker takes 
pleasure in reading his pages. He did not approve 
the term "orthodoxy," for he thought it too loud a 



376 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



profession. He has been charged with Hegelian- 
ism because of some expressions in his Commentary 
on the Hebrews, But the allegation is false, for 
he only applauded Hegel and Schelling as thinkers, 
without giving any sanction to their opinions. His 
views were slow to reach the common people, only 
a few being willing to study his weighty thoughts. 
He thoroughly imbued his congregation in Rotter- 
dam with his own spirit, and di-ew man}^ follo^vers, 
who gave his ideas to the public in an atti*acti\'e 
form. In 1851 he had a long and serious illness, 
after which he deemed it his duty to limit himself 
no longer to the functions of the pastoral office, but to 
raise his voice in ecclesiastical debates. In 1852 he 
took part in the formation of a society called ''Seriousness 
and Peace " and was associated with Beets and Doedes 
in the editorship of their organ bearing the same name. 
The principle of the new organization consisted in the 
prominence given to science and its service in theology, 
in opposition to the school of Bilderdyk. It held that 
the Sciiptures are of divine authority ; that they are 
properly expressed in the confessions of the Reformed 
Church of Holland; and that science must be subsi- 
dized for their explanation.^ 

Soon after the appearance of Renan's Life of Jesus^ 
the Dutch theologians were surprised by a pamphlet 
entitled History or Romance^ which, besides giving 
an admirable criticism on the new work, defined very 
clearly the points at issue, and lifted out of its poetic 
frame the picture deserving more serious study. The 
style was recognized as that of Professoi* Van Oosterzee. 
Like everything coming from his pen, it was easily read 
and as easily digested. It sounded the ^^larm, and 

^ La Crise Rcligieuse en Hollande^ pp. 12-107. 



PROFESSOR VAN OOSTERZEE. 



377 



warned the public mind against accepting Kenan's ro- 
mance as history. A few sentences in Professor Yan 
Oosterzee's little work reveal his position in the recent 
conflict with Rationalism. Modern Naturalism,'- says 
he, can be conquered only by a Christian philosophic 
belief in revelation, and by a powerful development 

of modern supernaturalism To some, 

nothing is easier than to lay all supernaturalism under 
condemnation, especially when it is opposed only in that 
form in which it appeared against the worn-out Rational- 
ism of the past century, without attending to its further 
development, or taking the trouble to add to Renan's 
critical anathema a clear and intelligible exposition of 
his own point of view. Renan's Life of Jesus shows us 
what becomes of Christianity when we regard only the 
ethical-religious side of revelation, and not its supernat- 
ural character. You can hope for no victory so long as 
you know none but a subjective ground of faith, and do 
not meet Satan, coming as an angel of light, with a per- 
spicuous and powerful, ^ Thus it is Written.' " 

Professor Yan Oosterzee was called in 1862 to 
the chair of Scriptural Interpretation in the Univer- 
sity of Utrecht, then the centre of evangelical theology 
in Holland. He had been pastor of a church in Rot- 
terdam, and his new appointment, made at the instance 
of the King and his ministers, was a great triumph of 
the orthodox party. He had already distinguished him- 
self by his Life of Christ and GTiristology^ in six vol- 
umes, and by his exegetical labors in connection with 
Lange's Bible- Work. But the oration he delivered on 
his assumption of office in the University added largely 
to his reputation, and obliterated any doubt which may 
have existed concerning his firm attachment to the faith 
of the fathers. Bearing the title, TTie Skepticism ivTiicJi 



378 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



is anxiously to he avoided hy the Theologians of our Day^ 
it discusses the character, origin, rights, fruits, and rem- 
edy of the infidelity of his own time. The cardinal 
characteristic of this skepticism was, according to Pi'o- 
fessor Van Oosterzee, a denial of the great revelation of 
grace and truth in Jesns Christ, as the Son of God and 
of man, by whom salvation is made possible to us and 
to all the world. There are three fountains of the 
modern infidelity: a scholastic dogmatism, which has 
laid more stress on the formularies of the church than 
on the Gospel itself ; a wild, revolutionary spii'it in 
politics, not of native growth, but imported from abroad, 
which only satisfied itself by the overthrow of thrones, 
by the transgression of all established limits, and by its 
declaration of the supreme rights of reason and will ; 
and a false philosophy, with its unholy brood of Empiri- 
cism, Idealism, Materialism, Eationalism, and Natui'alism. 
The skepticism of his contemporaries assei'ts rights to 
which it has no claim whatevei*, for it holds that 
the so-called mysteries of Christianity have no divine 
basis, and that there can be nothing supernatural in rev- 
elation. Neither can the labors of the skeptics pro- 
duce substantial and permanent good in any department 
of theology. The only way to combat them is not by re- 
viewing the opinions of departed thinkers and teachers, 
so much as by going directly back to the Bible itself, and 
looking at it with the aid of every new step in science. 
Such a weapon is a sound system. It may be termed 
the Evangelical'hiUical, historicaPphilosophical^ ireni 
calrjpQ'O^tical theology. If it be developed, all the shafts 
of infidelity will fall harmless at its feet. 

Immediately after the appearance of Professor Van 

* Oratio de Scepttciamo^ Rodiernis Theologis Caute Vitando^ quam habuit 
Johannes Jacobus Van Oosterzee Theologis Doctor : Roterodami. 1863. 



CHANTEPIE DE LA SAUSSAYE. 



379 



Oosterzee's reply to Renan, La Saussaye published his 
work entitled, How must Modern Naturalism he at- 
tacked? While he opposes Naturalism, he also takes ex* 
ception to the usual orthodox method of assailing it. 
In this work, together with other treatises by the same 
vigorous writer, we find the Ethical-Irenical theology 
stated and defended. 

The term Ethical is not, according to La Saussaye, 
the same as moral^ — for morality, conscience, duty, and 
virtue are terms which find their home in the Kantian 
philosophy, and are now appropriated by the Groning- 
en School. JEthical has application to the receptivi- 
ties, — the inner wants, and states of the heart. It dif- 
fers from religion just as want differs from supply. 
The Christian knows that religious truth, life, and action 
are not the fruits of his subjective state of feeling, but of 
revelation, and of the communication of God to his spirit. 
The ethical is the natural, and the religious is the su- 
pernatural state of the heart. The Ethical theologians 
differ from the Supernaturalists on the following psy- 
chological ground : the former believe that the super- 
natural is communicated with human nature, and is so 
inseparable from it that a denial of it is a rejection of 
all that is most human in man. The latter hold that the 
supernatural, since it is an essential part of religion, is 
necessary not merely to accredit revelation, but to es- 
tablish it. 

While La Saussaye agrees with Van Oosterzee in ap. 
plication of the term ethical^ he does not hold with him 
that the " Thus it is written " is an adequate reply to 
the Rationalist. Neither will his view of miracles har- 
monize with that of the professor, or with Vinet and 
De Pressense, of whom he forcibly reminds us in many 
of his opinions. The supernaturalistic theory, La Saus- 



380 



HISTOKY OF EATIOIN^ALISM. 



saye contends, is incorrect. The church has paid too 
much attention to the exterior features of miracles, but 
far too little to their ethical import, and to the connection 
between nature and spirit. Miracles can be defended 
only on the ground that the power to work them is still 
in the church over which Christ presides and to which 
he communicates his energy. The Naturalist who op- 
poses the present power of miracles can be convicted by 
an appeal to his own personality ; for he is not merely 
nature^ but also supernatural, free, spiritual. He feels 
himself responsible ; he has a conscience. Renan, in 
his picture of Christ and his apostles, places salvation 
on an equality with deliverance from sickness, and 
makes it mere socialism. If we would rebuke the skep- 
ticism of our own day ^ve must return to first princi- 
ples ; not to the doctrines, but to the facts on which 
they rest. Revelation presupposes the ideas of God, 
law, responsibility, sin and judgment. "We must recog- 
nize Israel's law, though national in form, as written 
on the hearts of all men. When you prove the ethical 
idea in religion you show at once its necessary factor. 
The life of the Church is a spiritual, supernatural, and 
therefore wonderful life. It is the great standing mir- 
acle which proves the truth of God. The first and all-im- 
portant thing to be done by us is not to fight the natural- 
ism outside of us, but that which is in us. Above all, 
let the church feel and show the power of the resurrec- 
tion. The true method of gaining " the world" is by the 
awakening of the church to a consciousness of those ele- 
ments of truth in her possession. The enemy we fight 
is not men but a spirit, — the spirit of negation, destruc- 
tion, and Satan. Let us believe in that Saviour who 
makes the soul at peace with God, reconciles man to the 
Infinite, and leads and encourages us to attempt to ap- 
propriate by our thoughts the undeveloped in our souls. 



FUTUEE OF THE CHUECH. 



381 



On what then depends the future of the church? 
We hear La Saussaye describe in eloquent words the 
conditions of her success : " I do not hesitate to declare," 
he says, " that the future of the nation depends on a revi- 
val, in the very bosom of the Protestant Church, of a 
I profound and enlightened piety, of an alliance of faith 
I with science, an alliance which constituted the strength 
of our illustrious wise men, and to which we ought to 
devote whatever greatness there is yet left us. It is 
only by the payment of this price that the Netherland 
Church can reconquer that place which she once occupied 
among Christian people. But since she does not fill 
I this position, since we are afraid of majestic science, and 
j only employ our resources to treat of questions in de- 
tail, since the stream of our piety runs through a nar- 
row channel, and since science only moves in the direc- 
tion of a foolish liberalism, European Protestantism must 
suffer from the unhappy vacancy that is now left in the 
ranks of the Church of the Netherlands."^ 

La Saussaye continued until his death, in 1874, to 
be the modern advocate of the Ethical theology, de- 
manding an ever-renewed criticism of dogmas, and 
giving to the heart and moral nature of man the cen- 
tral position in his system. He received the German 
: Mediating theology in its proposed union of science and 
faith. He was professor at Groningen for two years,, 
1872-74. Professor J. H. Gunning, at Leyden, and his 
son, P. D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, at Amsterdam, 
have been his chief followers. 

Van Oosterzee published his Christian Dogmatics 
in 1870-72. Both he and Doedes of the Utrecht or 
Apologetic School maintained a moderate orthodoxy, 
but as late as 1880 and 1881, the former in his Theo- 

^ La Crise Religieuse en HoUande, p. 300. 

26 



382 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



pneusty^ and the latter in his The Belgic Confession 
and The Heidetterg Catechism, wrote and spoke against 
a return to the original confessionalism advocated by 
the promoters of the movement toward the Reformed 
theology. Their influence was prolific thiough the 
training of a generation of pi'eachers who have become 
the leaders of the Reformed Church. They have later 
been represented in Utrecht by Professors Cramer, 
Lamei's, and Van Leeuwen, Kruijf at Gi oningen, and 
Van Toorenenbergen at Amsterdam. 

The Groningen School in 1867 organized a separate 
association (Het Evangelie) in order to influence church 
elections, and began the publication of a monthly organ 
called Geloof en Vrijheid, They have had as repre- 
sentatives in the faculties of the universities, Canneyie- 
ter at Utrecht, Gooszen and Ofl:*erhaus at Leyden, and 
Reitsma at Groningen. 

The Modern Theology has had its development 
mainly : flrst, through Scholten, of Leyden, who became 
its chief dogmatic writer, and later, in substantial har- 
mony with the Tubingen School, its leading New Tes- 
tament critic ; second, through Kuenen in his historical 
criticism of the religion of Israel and of the Old Testa- 
ment; third, through Opzoomer, of Utrecht, in his phil- 
osophical opposition to Supernaturalism ; and fourth, 
through Hoekstra, of Amsterdam, who gave to it its 
strong ethical trend. The contest between the ethical 
wing and the intellectualists of the Modern School has 
been w^aged wath alternating success for the past thirty 
years, and much confusion has ensued in its ranks in 
regard to the essence, the origin, the value, and the 
revelation of religion, and to the relations of religion 
and morality and of religion and science. 

In speaking of the three tendencies known as 



KUYPER AND KUENEJ^. 



383 



Supernaturalism, the Gronigen School, and the Modern 
Theology, Dr. H. Bavinck tersely says : We are struck 
with the tragic aspect of this development of dogmatic 
thought. It is a slow process of dissolution that meets 
our view. It began with setting aside the Confession ; 
Scripture alone was to be heard. Next Scripture also 
is dismissed, and the person of Christ is fallen back 
upon. Of this person of Christ, however, first his 
divinity, next his pi'eexistence, finally his sinlessness 
are surrendered, and nothing remains but a pious man, 
a religious genius, revealing to us the love of God. 
But even the existence and the love of God are not 
able to withstand criticism. Thus the moral element 
in man becomes the last basis from which the battle 
against Materialism is conducted. But this basis will 
appear to be as unstable and unreliable as the others."^ 
Abram Kuyper became the successor of Groen Van 
Prinsterer, w^ho died in 1876, as leader of the Reformed 
Church party. He based his position on the Scriptures 
and the Reformed Confession. He led in the establish- 
ment in 1880 of the Free University at Amsterdam, 
where he has since been the leading professoi*. He 
has been a persistent, energetic, and successful leader 
in the restoration of the Calvinistic theology to its 
present predominance in the popular and political life 
of Holland. 

Abraham Kuenen, of Ley den, published his His- 
toricO'Critical Investigation into the Origin and Collec- 
tion of the Old Testament Boohs in 1861-65 ; The 
Religion of Israel to the Fall of the Jewish State, 
1869-70; the Prophets and Prophecy in Israel in 
1875 ; and National Religion and Universal Religions 

^ Recent Dogmatic Tliouglit in the Netlierlands. Pres. and Ref. Rev., 
April, 1892. 



384 



HISTORY OF KATIONALIS:\r. 



in 1882. He was a lecognized leader in the radical 
or extreme wing of the modern Critical School. He 
rejected miracles, prophecy, and revelation, and has 
been on Dutch soil the ablest advocate and expounder, 
and in some particulars the originator, of what are 
known as the Graf-Wellhausen theories. In his first 
named and greatest work he employs all the resources 
of his learning to prove that the Hexateuch teems with 
inaccuracies and contradictions, and must consequently 
be a patchwork composed by man}' authors who wrote 
during periods that were separated by many centuries. 

He finds three groups of laws: (1) those of Exodus 
XX, 23-xxiii, 33 ; (2) those contained in Deuteronomy ; 
(3) all others contained in Exodus, Leviticus, and 
Numbers. His study of the Hexateuch leads him to 
conclude that the ten commandments are probably of 
Mosaic orisrin. The institution of the Sabbath dates 
from Moses. The Hebi'ew tradition which derives the 
ark of Jehovah from the great lawgiver is well founded. 
But Moses bequeathed no book of law to the tribes of 
Israel. The priestly legislation in Exodus and Num- 
bers was probably not brought to its present form 
until after the exile, and is therefore younger than 
Deuteronomy. Kuenen died in 1891. 

Allard Pierson and A. S. Loman, of Amsterdam, 
have also been leaders in the destructive criticism of 
these later years. Their attack has been directed 
chiefly against the principal epistles of Paul. Van 
Maynen, of Leyden, and Volter, of Amsterdam, have 
also taken part in similar onslaughts upon the writings 
of Paul, the former even maintaining that Paul himself 
never was an historical reality. 

In 1857, under the combined influence of Eomanists 
and Liberalists, religious instruction was banished from 



EDUCATIONAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL PAETIES. 385 



the schools of Holland, and in 1876 the theological 
faculties of the universities were dissolved and funds 
were granted to the National Synod for special theo- 
logical instruction. The professorships thus provided 
for were secured by rationalizing teachers, and then 
the orthodox portion of the National Church estab- 
lished in 1880 the Free Reformed University at Am- 
sterdam. Free schools in which evangelical instruction 
is given have been established by the same party in 
all parts of the country. 

The ecclesiastical conditions in Holland are deter- 
mined largely by the Walloon Church, historically and 
doctrinally the descendant of the Reformed Church of 
France. In the Walloon Church both the liberal and 
orthodox tendencies have a legal recognition. The 
Protestants of Holland are about equally divided be- 
tween the Orthodox and the Moderns or Liberals, with 
a small numerical majority among the orthodox pastors. 
This advantage, however, has been quite steadily over- 
come through the weak management of the orthodox 
party, and through the Walloon Commission, which, in 
the intervals of sessions of the national body, governs 
the Walloon churches and serves as the connecting 
authority between them and the Reformed Synod. 

But the advocates of the evangelical faith are many, 
and they are still at work. A hearty and glowing 
interest in missions has been developed. Differences 
in some non-essentials have been perhaps marked by 
the characteristic pertinacity of the hardy Dutch race, 
but there are many signs of a coming unity of the 
Spirit w^hich shall yet fuse the Christianity of the 
Netherlands in a bond of peace as strong and enduring 
as it has been slow in forming. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



FRANCE : RATIONALISIVr IN THE PROTESTANT CHURCH— 
THE CRITICAL SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY. 

Some FrencL clergymen, avIio were sojourning in 
Bei'lin in 1842, asked Neander, ''What ought to be 
done to arouse the Protestants of France to thinking 
upon theological subjects ? " " Give yourselves no 
trouble on that score," replied the professor; "the- 
ology will yet have its good day among you. You 
have in France the soil in which true theology loves to 
germinate and grow — I mean Christian life. This has 
brought you your great theologians of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries, and it is sure to do the same 
thing in the nineteenth." The last century had not 
yet run two-thirds of its course before the prophecy 
was literally fulfilled. 

The spectacle of forty years ago in France is highly 
interesting. The period of indifference had already tei*- 
minated. The first step toward new vitality had there- 
fore been taken. F]'ench theology was displaying an 
animation and seriousness which mio^ht well excite the 
notice of the whole civilized world. The great minds 
were bestowing upon sacred subjects an attention no- 
where surpassed in vigor and acuteness. Important re- 
ligious questions were taking their place beside political 
themes, and the circle of theological readers and thinkers 



EFFECTS OF THE HUGUENOT PERSECUTION. 387 

was constantly enlarging. Each class was deeply en- 
gaged in the discussion of all the new phases of opinion. 
Every man chose his party, cherished his own convic^ 
tions, and preached them boldly. The traveler, who 
might make only a brief stay in Paris, found there rep- 
resentatives of all the professions spending the whole 
evening in the criticism of the last books from the 
Liberal Party, and of the rejoinders of their orthodox 
opponents. Then, for the first time since the seventeenth 
century, a state of general religious inquiry and earnest- 
ness existed. It is not difficult to interpret this quick- 
ening of national thought on theological questions. It 
meant that France would have no small share in the 
decision of the great points at issue between evangelical 
believers and their critical, destructive antagonists. 

Early in the last century the Reformed and Lutheran 
Churches were sunk in skeptical formalism. They were 
divided into two parties, neither of which possessed 
spirit enough to defend its position, or grace enough to 
ask God for his blessing. One adhered to the cold 
iSupernaturalism of the eighteenth century, the other to 
a system of philosophical Deism. The reduced state 
of piety was largely due to the oppression suffered at 
the hand of the state. The Revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes, which deprived Protestants of both religious 
and civil liberty, occurred in October, 1685, and it was 
not until 1808 that the law of the 18th Germinal once 
more recognized their rights, and placed Catholicism 
and Protestantism on an equal basis. The whole in- 
terval was marked by a stagnation of fearful character. 
At the time of the Revocation, the Reformed Church 
had eight hundred edifices and six hundred and forty 
pastors, but when the restoration occurred it had but 
one hundred and ninety churches and the same number 
of pastors. 



388 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



The apostasy of the Protestants went to a fearful 
extent. For example, at the very time of the infamous 
worship of the Goddess of Reason, a pastor and hi? 
elders carried their communion plate and the baptismal 
vessels to the mayor, to have tliem melted down for 
the nation. Improvement began about 1820. There 
were but thi-ee Protestant chapels in Paris, and the 
services were dull and unattractive. To Fredeiic 
Monod belongs the imperishable honor of commencing 
the renovation by means of his little Sunday school. 
" Never will the traces of his labors be effaced," says 
M. de Pressense, " for he it is to whom we owe the first 
farrows in the vast field which now we rejoice to see 
white unto the harvest." A domestic evangelical spirit, 
embracing the most distant provinces, began to be ap- 
parent in the ministrations of the clergy and in the 
popular attendance at the services. 

A foreign agency also contributed to the awakening. 
In 1785 a Wesley an mission was commenced in the 
Norman isle of Guernsey, and in the following year || 
Adam Clarke was sent to Jersey. It was designed to 
make the Channel Islands the beginning of French mis- 
sions. Wesley predicted that they would be outposts 
for evangelizing efforts all over the Continent. In a 
short time Jean de Quetteville and John Angel went 
over into Normandy, and preached the gospel in many 
villages. Dr. Coke, the superintendent of the Meth- 
odist missions, went with the former preacher to Paris, t 
where they organized a short-lived mission. But the 
labors of Mahy, who had been ordained by Coke, were i 
very successful. Large numbers came to his ministry, 
and many were converted through his instrumentality. 
When peace was declared aft^r the battle of Waterloo, | 
three men, Toase, Eobarts, and Prankland, sailed for ] 



RELIGIOUS INTEREST. 



389 



Normandy. In 1817 Charles Cook joined them. He 
went from town to town, stirring up the sluggish con- 
science of French Protestantism. He terminated his 
arduous toils in 1858, leaving behind him a French 
branch of the Methodist Church, which embraced one 
hundred and fifty-two houses of worship, one hundred 
ministers, lay and clerical, and fifteen hundred members. 
Merle d' Aubign6 has said of Dr. Cook that " the work 
which John Wesley did in Great Britain Charles Cook 
has done, though on a smaller scale, on the Continent." 
His death was lamented by all the leaders of French 
Protestantism. Professor G. De Felice, of Montauban, 
has affirmed that, of the instruments of the French 
awakening, " Dr. Charles Cook was not the least in- 
fluential." ^ 

The new religious interest arising from the native 
and imported influences was so fatal to the prevalent 
skepticism that Voltaire and his school have now but 
few adherents. Skeptics of France consider that type 
effete and unworthy of their support. " The present 
disciples of Voltaire," says Pastor Fisch, " are compelled 
to deny his language if they would remain true to the 
spirit of their master. For, to deride Jesus Christ would 
manifest an inexcusable want of respectability." 

But infidelity has only changed its position. Des- 
cartes, the apostle of Rationalism in France, had taught 
that God was only a God-Idea, or human thought con- 
tinuing itself in divine thought and in infinity. He 
would make no greater admission than that God had 
put the world in motion. The principles of Descartes, 
clustering around this opinion, have never lost their 
hold upon the French mind, and are now influencing it 
to a remarkable degree. 

^ Stevens, History of Methodism ^ Yol. 2, pp. 331-339. 



390 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



Cai-tesiaiiism gained new power by the agency of 
the Eclectic School, whose champions were Royer-CoL 
lard, Maine de Biran, Cousin, and Jouffroy. Their 
great achievement was the unification of the philosophi- 
cal sytems of Germany and Scotland. But the Eclectica 
have reached a state of dissolution. 

Positivism, as a subordinate system, is the work 
of Comte al(^ne. This, too, has largely lost its hold 
upon the land of its birth. Its fundamental principle 
is, that in virtue of an inner law of development of the 
mind, the whole human race will gradually emancipate 
itself from all religion and metaphysics, and substitute 
for tlie worsliip of God the love of humanity, or a 
mundane religion. The law of development consists in 
the psychological experience that all the ideas and cog- 
nitions of the human mind have necessarily to pass 
through the three stages of theology, metaphysics, and 
positivism. It is only when it arrives at the stand- 
point of absolutely positive, or mathematically exact 
knowledge, that human thought attains its goal of per- 
fection. The religion of mankind is divided into three 
stages ; fetichism, polytheism, and monotheism. Its rep- 
resentatives are Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Chris- 
tianity. Catholicism is better suited than any other 
form of religion to the perfect development of human 
society. The Christian world is now in the transitory 
stage of metaphysics, which, by and by, will lead to the 
golden age of Positivism. This is the absolute religion, 
or the worship of humanity, which needs no God or 
revelation. 

While Comte has so deeply impressed the think- 
ing circles of France that his opinions are still percep- 
tible in the doctrines of the Liberal Party, another 
great agent has been operating upon the young, unedu- 



LIGHT FEENCH LITEEATUEE. 



391 



cated, and laboring classes. We refer to the light 
French novel, ov feuilleton literature. Such writers as 
Sue, George Sand, .and Dumas, father and son, have 
published many volumes which were issued in cheap 
style, and afterward scattered profusely over the land. 
These works have been extensively read, not only in 
France, but in all parts of the Continent, Great Britain, 
and the United States. A wide traveler has averred 
that he found many persons perusing them in the read- 
ing-rooms of Athens. But the public mind sometimes 
needs a path by which it can effect a transition from a 
skeptical to an evangelical condition. May it not be 
that, as far as France is concerned, the minds of the 
masses have, by this agency, been deflected to such an 
extent from the infidelity of Encyclopsedism that pop- 
ular evangelical literature will now find a readier en- 
trance than it could otherwise have effected? If a 
taste for reading be once created, it may be won, under 
judicious management and by the aid of God's Spirit, to 
a purer cause than that which first excited it. The 
tendency of the works in question is indisputably 
pernicious, but, if we may think they will serve as a 
medium of passage for the French masses to the read- 
ing and adoption of the great truths of the Gospel, let 
us not be too slow to accept the consolation. 

Such are some of the agencies which have been op- 
erating upon the French mind. It now becomes neces- 
sary to take a survey of the recent theological move- 
ments, and to show in what relations the Rationalistic 
and evangelical thinkers stand to each other. 

The Critical School of Theology has been by far 
the greatest foe of orthodoxy in France. The English 
Rationalists exhibit but little scholarly depth, having 
borrowed their principal thoughts from Germany. The 



392 



IIISTOUY OF liATlONALISM. 



Dutch are too speculative to arrive at any conclusion, 
and the Germans have already grown weary of their 
long warfare. But the French School, claiming such 
writers as Scherer, Colani, Pecaut, Reville, Reuss, Co- 
(|uerel, and Kenan, is not to be disregarded, nor ai'e its 
arguments to be met with indifference. It is, however, 
most gratifying to state that those ardent friends of 
the Gospel who ]*esisted the attacks of this school 
have shown zeal, learning, and skill, (piite equal to 
their ill- armed opponents. 

By virtue of that principle of centralization which has 
long been in force in France, the Critical School of Theol- 
ogy makes Paris the chief seat of its influence. Availing 
itself of the advantage of the press, it published an 
organ adapted to every class of readers.' The mem- 
bers of the Critical School are connected with the Prot- 
estant Church, yet they claim to teach whatever views 
they may see proper to entertain. They profess deep 
attachment to the Church, and in their journals advise 
every one to unite himself with the fold of Christ. If 
the Reformed Church, in which the most of the Ration- 
alists are found, were not bound to the State by the 
Concordat and Budget it is probable that it would be 
divided. One branch would be the Reformed Church 
of France, founded in 1559, with a clearly determined 
creed, which none but a General Synod would have 
power to modify. The other would be the Church of 
the Future, which would proclaim the admission of no 
dogmas, no liturgy, and no discipline, and would give 

' For thinking circles, it issued the Revue de Theohgie et de PhilosopMe 
Ckretienne^ founded fifty years ago by Scherer and Colani. It influenced 
the general public by the daily political paper, Le Temps, and the Revue 
Oermanique. The Strasburg Revue and Paris Lien were for the special 
benefit of Protestants in general ; while the Disciple de Jesus Christ and 
Piete-Charite were designed for children and uneducated persons. 



THE CRITICAL SCHOOL. 



393 



power to every one to preach contradictory and nega- 
tive doctrines in its pulpits.^ 

The association of Rationalists in Paris is called the 
Liberal Protestant Union. It claims that Protestantism, 
as represented by the churches, has ceased to be progres- 
sive and civilizing. According to its platform, there is no 
religious authoiity but free examination ; w^hile hostility 
to all common symbols and to all profession of faith is a 
duty. The Union was immediately opposed. Among 
other indications of the ill-favor with which it was receiv- 
ed was a Remonstrance, signed by some of the most dis- 
tinguished laymen of Paris. Their language in defense 
of the Bible as authority for faith was unequivocal. " We 
do not believe," they said, " that righteousness is indif- 
ference ; nor do we believe that there is, or can be, a 
church without a doctrine, a religious doctrine, which 
unites believers and forms the bond of the Church." 

The opinions of the French Critical School of The- 
ology, at v^hich the Remonstrance was aimed, may 
be briefly stated. 

No system is adopted. It professes none, and 
studiously avoids the embarrassment consequent upon 
any obligation. Colani says, "We do not present to 
our readers any fixed system ; we have none ; we are 
asking for one conscientiously, patiently ; with all our 
contemporaries, w^e are in the midst of an epoch of tran- 
sition. We call around us those who, dissatisfied with 
the forms of antiquated system of dogma, and ful- 
ly admitting salvation by Christ alone, desire to labor 
in raisiu2r the new edifice which is to be built on the 
solid basis of Him who is at once the son of man and 
the Son of God. . . . Not a school, not a system, 
but a tendency is that which we represent. The device 

> M. De Coninck, Christian WorJc, April, 1863. 



394 



HISTORY OF EATIOJ^ALISM. 



on our banner is ' The True Development of Chris- 
tian Thought.' " ^ It is difficult to arrive at a knowledge 
of what this leader is so modest as to call only a " ten- 
dency.^' It claims to have the right of judgment con- 
cerning all the truths of the Bible ; holds that the Ho- 
chelle Confession is a very good monument of the faith 
of the fathers, but should not now be imposed ; that 
the Bible has no more authority than the books of Plato 
or Aristotle ; that each man has a revelation in himself, 
free from the imperfections of the Mosaic and Christian 
revelations; that science, criticism, and examination 
open the only path to truth ; that miracles should be 
discarded ; that Protestantism has lost sight of its mis- 
sion ; and that a second Reformation, embodied in the 
Church of the Future, is needed to complete the first.^ 

An acknowledged leader of the liberal party has 
made some statements which more nearly approach the 
enunciation of a system than vre have been able to 
find in any other authoi'ity of French Rationalism. 

M. R6ville says, "The modern Protestant theology 
[Rationalism] aspires not to deny the doctrines of 
the Reformation absolutely, but to preserve the truth 
that is in them by filtering them through a medium 
more conformed to our science and our reason. The 
dogmas of original sin, the trinity, the incarnation, justi- 
fication by faith, future rewards, and the inspiration of 
the sacred writings, may serve as examples. On the first 
of these dogmas, renouncing the idea of an original per- 
fection, the reality of which is contrary to reason and 
to all our historical analogies, modern theology would 
insist on the evil influence which determines to evil an 

* Progress of Religious Thought in the Protestant Church of France^ 
pp. 8-9. 

^ DJ^glise Reformee de France et la Theologie Nbuvelle^ pp. 5-7. 



M. eeville's opinions. 



395 



individual plunged in society where sin reigns, on the 
necessary passage from a state of innocence to a state of 
moral consciousness and struggle, on the fall which man 
endures when he sinks from his higher nature to his 
lower, and j-enounces God's will to serve his own. As 
to the trinity, avoiding the scholastic and contradictory 
tritheism of the old creeds, intent on vigorously pre- 
serving God's essential unity, and at the same time his 
conscious or personal life, this theology attaches itself 
to the grand idea of the Divine Word pervading the 
world, as the uttered thought, the objective revelation 
of God, conceived as manifesting himself to himself in 
his works. In humanity this eternal word becomes the 
Holy Spirit, the light which lightens every man coming 
into the world, but which shines in all its splendor in 
Jesus Christ. In this series of ideas the incarnation 
loses that stamp of absolute contradiction which it takes 
from the orthodox idea of one and the same person, 
who is at the same time God and man, finite and infinite, 
localized and omnipresent, praying and prayed to, know 
ing and not knowing all things, and impeccable, yet 
tempted. The pure and real humanity of Christ is the 
basis of the system, and the system may be summed up 
in these words : The Son of Man is the Son of God. 
Man is justified by faith, not as the old orthodoxy 
taught, that is, because he believes that satisfaction was 
given to God in his place and on his behalf, but because 
he has confidence in the eternal love of God, and in his 
own destination for good, as evidenced by Christ in his 
life and in his death. 

"The eternity of future sufferings gives place to an 
idea more in conformity with sound philosophy, and the 
revelation of infinite love, according to which pain, re- 
sulting from sin, can have for its object only the a me- 



396 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



lioration of the sinner, and special stress is laid on the 
spiritual truth that heaven and hell are much less differ- 
ent places than different states of the soul. The inspi- 
ration of the Scriptures, that dogma the truth of which 
consisted in the scriptural value of the biblical books, 
as giving a sure basis for faith, as supplying aliment to 
piety, and elevating the heart, more and more loses 
its miraculous character to approach analogous phenom- 
ena drawn from religions in general, or from other 
fields where the mind of man reveals itself as inspired. 
The change of views, however, does not take from the 
Bible its character as a truly divine book ; still does it 
remain in religion the Book of Books." ^ 

It is unsafe to adduce the testimony of any mem- 
ber of this school as an absolute standard of the theo- 
logical position of all the rest. There was a wide diver- 
sity of opinion among theui, as any one will perceive 
who has attempted the comparison. But after examin- 
ing the individual opinions of some of these men, it will 
not be difficult to form a correct judgment of their in- 
tellectual position as a whole. 

One of the most laborious of the number was Ed- 
mond Scherer, formerly Professor of Theology in the 
University of Geneva. His first point of departure fi om 
orthodoxy was on the inspiration and authority of the 
Bible. He became absorbed in German Rationalistic 
criticism, and adopted its leading principles. His skep- 
tical views caused such offense that he was led to re- 
sign his position, when he soon commenced the pub- 
lication of his views in the new Revue de Theologie 
at Strasburg. He subsequently kept aloof from all 
participation in the State Church and confined himself 

^ Progress of Rellgiovs Thought in tlie Protestant Church of France, 
pp. 89, 90. 



M. scherer's opinions. 



397 



mostly to writing essays. Some of them were after- 
ward collected into a volume, entitled Miscellanies of 
Religious Criticism} 

Protestantism, according to Soberer, has a right to 
free inquiry. Once give it the Bible as authority, and 
you drive it back to Catholicism. This is what has al- 
ready been done by Protestants, whose religion has 
numbered its days. Authority has been its ruin, and 
now it has no liberty. The Evangelists contradict each 
other in many instances. The Apostles failed to quote 
the Old Testament correctly. Their gross errors are 
sufficient of themselves to overthrow all the claims of 
Scripture to authority. It is not certain that the Gospel 
of John is authentic; that the discourses of Jesus are 
correctly reported ; that Jesus taught his consubstanti- 
ality with the Father ; that the divinity of Christ in- 
volves his omnisicence ; that Christ had any intention 
to decide questions of criticism and canonicity ; that he 
believed in the inspiration of the Old Testament ; that 
he acknowledged the divinity of the Canticles and Ec- 
clesiastes ; or that, if he sanctioned the inspiration of 
the Old Testament, he did the same thing concerning 
the New. 

The New Testament, says Scherer, is full of errata. 
It contains different records of the same facts. Take as 
an example the conversion of Saul, of which there are 
three accounts in the Acts. The discourses of Christ 
are described in different contexts ; the same discourses 
are not related in similar words ; and there is no exact- 
ness in the narratives. There are differences in the 
Gospels, affecting the ideas and actions of Jesus, which 
sometimes amount to positive contradictions. They 

^ Progress of EeligioiLs Thought in the Protestant Church of France^ 
Biographical Notices, pp. iii-iv. - 
27 



398 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



exist also between the first three Gospels and that 
of John. The last Evangelist gives a very different ac- 
count of many points in the history of the passion and 
resurrection of Christ, especially in respect to the last 
Supper and the chronology of the whole passion-week. 
Christ announced his second coming as near at hand. 
Hence he, or the Evangelists in reporting him, were 
grossly in . error. Thei'e are, in a word, serious objec- 
tions to accepting the New Testament as authoritative ; 
because we find in it the use of the Septuagint ; quota- 
tions from the Old Testament in a sense not intended in 
the original ; influence of Jewish traditions ; Rabbini- 
cal arguments ; uncertainty in reports of the discourses 
of Christ ; contradictions between different accounts of 
the same facts ; errors in chronology and history ; and 
Messianic hopes and expectations not in accordance with 
external events. What right have we, therefore, to ac* 
cept as infallible that in which we find such an admix- 
ture of error ? It is the duty of religious science to 
reconcile revelation with the growing requirements of 
human thought, and to smooth over the transition from 
the dogma of the past to that of the future. Dogmatic 
exegesis does this by separating the substance from 
the form, faith from formulas, and by distinguishing 
and pointing out the religious element under the tem- 
porary expression which reveals it. ^ 

What then is the Bible which Scherer's exegesis pre- 
sents to us ? Faith in it rests on two bases ; firs% the in- 
spiration and canon of Scripture ; and second^ the sub- 
jects or organs of inspiration. The first is untenable and 
false, for the stand-point of authority has already spoil- 
ed everything in our theology. Authority determines 
beforehand what we must believe, whereas reason alone 
should perfoi^m that office. There is a communicated 



M. scheeer's OPrNlOi^S. 



399 



revelation to our own minds whicli should claim the 
high office of authority. The Bible, in an objective 

I sense, is a divine book, because it contains the remem- 
brance of the most important events in the religious his- 

I tory of the world. Judaism and Christianity are there 

' in their completeness. The Bible is therefore more than 
a book ; it presents us with the living personality of 
those who founded Christ's Kingdom on earth. Inspi- 
ration, such as we find in the Scriptures, is not confined 
to them, for it is immanent wherever there is intelligence* 
The spirit of the Bible is the eternal spirit of God ; but 
it is the same spirit which has inspired all good men in 
past scriptural periods, — the Augustines, St. Bernards, 
Arndts, and Vinets. It is a falsehood of theology against 
faith to deny these men the same kind of inspiration 
which we find in the Scriptures. Biblical inspiration 
differs in different writers. They wrote from diverse 
stand-points. The chroniclers of Scripture told all they 
knew, but not much could be expected of them. Who 
would dare to speak of the inspiration of the books of 
Samuel, Buth, Kings, and Chronicles ? 

But let us hear what Scherer says of the miracles of 
Christ. No evangelical facts should be taken as points 
of departure in testing Christianity. It is absurd to 
speak of Christ's miracles as being designed for mani- 
festations of his divinity. Conceding them to be prodi- 
gies, they are far below those of Moses and Elijah. 
Christ did not work miracles in attestation of his power. 
He performed them in connection with his own words 
or expressions of other persons. When he gave miracu- 
lous power to his disciples, he simply did it as a means 
of beneficence. Miracles, in their true sense, are op- 
posed to both the Jewish and Christian notions of them. 

i Those of Christ are not the attestation and recommen- 



400 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



dation of his ministry ; they are acts of that ministry ; 
acts which have not their value exterior to themselves ; 
whose value is not in their argumentative character, but 
in their own intrinsic nature. They constitute an in- 
tegral part of the gospel, but nothing more. Christ's 
cures are not solely the symbol, they are the counter- 
part of the spiritual redemption brought by him unto 
the world. The authenticity of miracles is another ques- 
tion, and belongs altogether to exegesis.^ Taking the 
Scripture narrative as a whole, we greatly err in attach- 
ing any authority to it. Mohammed and the false 
prophets should be placed side by side with Moses and 
Jesus Christ ; for the religion of Christ is a purely hu- 
man one, like that of Buddha and the Arabian prophet. 
The Mosaic account of creation is evidently absurd; for 
man was at first a monkey. 

M. Larroque contends that the time has now come 
for a total departure from the last pagan tradition. 
Christianity has passed its allotted time and is now in 
its death-pangs. Material interests claim minute atten- 
tion. All we want is the assertion of a pure, ra- 
tional religion. It was a great misfortune that Marcus 
Aurelius did not popularize the theism which he ex- 
pressed in his writings. It would not then have been 
possible for Constantine to establish the Christian relig- 
ion, and the world would have been spared the irrup- 
tion of the barbarians, and the many subsequent pe- 
riods of darkness.^ 

M. Rougemont adheres to the accommodation- 
theory. It is the only method of relief in this day of 
darkness. God, in revelation, has only addressed him- 

^ Essays: Theological Con'oeraations ; Errata of the New Testa/inent; 
What the Bible is ; The Miracles of Christ, 

^ Examen Critique des Doctrines de la Religion Chretienne ; Renota' 
Hon Religieuse. 



M. COLANI'S OPHTIOIS'S. 



401 



self to the pliysical man. He communicated his spirit 
- — not the Holy Spirit — to the prophets. But that was 
exterior action. The sacred volume is the historic wit- 
ness of revelation, and is merely a relative necessity. 
The Church has existed before the Scriptures, and could 
still live if they were extinguished.^ 

M. Colani was prominent both as preacher and 
writer. A pastor of Strasburg being sick, he was urged 
to supply the pulpit for a few Sabbaths. Though he 
accepted with great reluctance, he was successful in 
pleasing the congregation. He was chosen permanent 
pastor, and continued the functions of this office, together 
with the chief editorship of the Revue de TMologie, 
His opinions are to be found in that periodical, and in 
several successful volumes of sermons. He professes to 
be neither satisfied with Eationalism in its destructive 
sense, nor with orthodoxy. He is confessedly one of 
the champions of the Critical School. Skepticism, he 
contends, is perfectly legitimate. We are authorized to 
doubt ; our opinions are fallible ; we must be prepared 
to change them whenever we think we can find better 
ones. The Bible is intended to reveal to us a life, not 
a dogma. We find in it no effort to describe dogmas ; 
no theological criticisms ; no system of morality.^ Ee- 
ligious inspiration is nothing but an extraordinary 
kindling of the divine spirit inherent in human nature. 
The Scripture writers are imperfect and limited by their 
own intelligence. The only way to reconcile religion 
and science is by history. We must study man not as 
an individual or nation, but as to his human nature. 
By doing this we will not take a characteristic for the 
man himself. Man is, by the testimony of history, a 
religious being, and history reveals his destiny. 

^ Christ et sea Temoins. ^ Revue de Theologie. Oct. 1853. 



402 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



Immortality is accepted. We have a personal life 
going into the infinite. Humanity develops itself by 
the action of the individual genius, and the individ- 
ual only successfully unfolds himself by not break- 
ing the bond which unites him to the general devel- 
opment of his species. We must consider the Bible 
as a collection of documents, over which criticism has 
absolute rights. We must distinguish between the 
thought of Christ and that of his historians. They in- 
sisted on what seemed to them miracles. Christ is in 
open conflict with the principle which would make 
miracles the necessary sign of a true revelation. He has 
taught the world to recognize God in the regular opera^ 
tion of natural laws. He never lays down any dog- 
matic conditions, and does not make religious character 
dependent on the reception of any class of doctrines. 
We must have faith in him alone, and not in his words. 
To be a Christian is to participate in the general life of 
the Christian church, and to take part with others in 
the labor of the Christian mind.^ 

M. Pecaut affirms that the historic position of tlie 
French Protestant Church is no longer tenable, for its 
principle of doctrinal faith restrains free examination. 
It is, however, in a transition-period, and thei-e is 
an indication of pro|]^ress in the recent interest in 
great questions of theology. For the doctrines of Prot- 
estantism we should substitute a pure, simple Deism ; 
we should substitute philanthropism for morality. The 
Bible is not entitled to authority, for it has no trace of 
inspiration. There is no such thing as mediation. We 
must not attach too much importance to the Messianic 
idea, for this would imply a special revelation. The 

^ Essay : Views and Aims. Sermons : What there is in the Bible ; The 
Simplicity of the Gospel. 



M. GROTZ'S OPmiONS. 



408 



Gospels rest on a very insecure basis. The theses of 
Paul betray a continued oscillation between the mys- 
tic and Jewish conceptions. As a whole, the Bible 
is not divine, and we should at once discard faith in its 
authoritative character. The only way by which Christ 
now acts upon persons is by the force of his example 
and ideas, just as Moses, Mohammed, and Socrates now 
influence men. Religious faith is not necessarily faith 

, in Christ. He was not free from sin in a moral sense ; 

i he had a natural sinfulness by virtue of his humanity.^ 
M. Grotz, pastor at Nismes, was once under the in- 
fluence of A. Monod, but owing to the withdrawal of 
Scherer from- orthodoxy he joined the Rationalists. He 
holds that revelation is not peculiar to the Scriptures. 
There are many kinds of revelation, and we find them 
continually in history. Every manifestation of God is 
a revelation. We must always examine freely and crit- 
ically ; nowhere does Christ enjoin the contrary. We 
need to use our intellectual faculties and conscience. 
The greatest revelation is Christ, — not his doctrines, but 
himself. We should always keep prophecy and mira- 
cles in the background, for they are minor questions and 
should occupy an humble position.^ 

Of all the members of the Critical School, Renan is 
the best known to the English and American public. 
He has written a number of works on various topics,* 
but it is by his Life of Jesus that he has gained great- 
est celebrity. God, Providence, and immortality are, 
with him, dull words about which philosophy has long 
played and finally interpreted in the most refined sense. 

^ Le Christ et la Conscience. 
'Essay: What is Revelation? 

* Studies of Eeligious History ; On the Origin of Language ; Averroes 
und Averroism ; History and comparative System of the Semitic Languages ; 
Boole ofJol) ; Essays on Morals and Criticism ; Solomon'' s Song. 



404 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



There is uo reason why a papoose should be immor- 
tal. Religion is a part of man's nature, and, in return, 
he is benefited and elevated by it. God's revelation is 
in man's innate consciousness. There is no necessity for 
miracles ; all that we need in this life is the mere result 
of the operation of natural forces. The present age is 
one in which we should freely criticise whatever comes 
up for acceptance ; but it is wrong to assume the prop- 
agandist. Let men have their own views ; we have no 
right to force others upon them. Man is very much at- 
tached to the theories contained in the world's first re- 
ligion. He has given it symbolical expression, for it is 
thus that religion will always embody itself. Man 
wants some way by which to tell how and what he 
thinks of God.^ 

The Gospels were all written, Renan contends, in 
the first century. The Jews were anticipating some- 
body who would prove a means of their improvement* 
Christ fitted the ideal, and the way was smoothed for 
his success by their visions, dreams, and hopes. The 
beautiful scenery of lake, valley, mountain, and river 
developed his poetic temperament. Then the Old Tes- 
tament made a deep impression on him, for he imagined 
it was full of voices pointing him out as the great future 
reformer. He was unacquainted with Hellenic culture, 
and hence it was his misfortune not to know that 
miracles had been wisely rejected by the schools which 
had received the Greek wisdom. In course of time a 
period of intoxication came upon him. He imagined 
that he was to bring about a new church which he 
everywhere calls the Kingdom of God. His views 
were Utopian ; he lived in a dream life, and his ideal- 
ism elevated him above all other agitators. He found- 

^ Miscellanies, 



405 



ed a sect, and his disciples became intoxicated witli his 
own dreams. But he did not sanction all their excesses : 
for instance, he did not believe the inexact and contra- 
dictory genealogies which we find in his historians. 

Yet he was a thorough thaumaturgist and sometimes 
indulged a gloomy feeling of resentment. His miracles 
are greatly exaggerated. He probably did some things 
which, to ignorant minds, appeared prodigies, but 
they were very few in number. He never rose from 
the dead; he had never raised Lazarus. By and by, 
the love of his disciples created him into a divinity, 
clothed him with wonderful powers, made him greater 
than he had ever pretended to be. Hence Christianity 
arose. It was love like that of Mary Magdalene, 
" an hallucinated woman, whose passion gave to the 
world a resurrected God." ^ Kenan's position will ex- 
plain all that he says of Christ. He looks at him from 
the stand-point of naturalism. Christ is no mediator. 
As an American writer has well said : " From this life 
of Christ no one would ever infer that there was sin in 
the world and that Christ came to save sinners." 

The reception of the lAfe of Jesus was most hearty 
throughout France. Criticism from every side was 
employed upon it. Over a hundred thousand copies 
were soon sold, and translations were made into all the 
European tongues. Its greatest success was in Roman 
Catholic countries. In France, Italy, Austria, Belgium, 
and Spain it has found a warm reception, but in the 
north of Europe, Protestant Germany, and England, it 
has had less success. As to the ultimate effect of the 
work we have every reason to value the opinion of M. 
de Pressense, who has surveyed the whole ground, and 
also written the best criticism upon Renan that has 

* Life of Jesus, American Edition. 



406 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



appeared in any country. He says : " I am persuaded 
that the results accomplished by it will be, in the 
main, good ; that it will not shake the faith of any true 
believer ; that it will produce, with many of those who 
were wavering, a good reaction, which will bring them 
back to a positive faith ; and that the common sense of 
the people will not fail to see that it is not thus that 
history is written, and that the problem of the origin 
of Christianity still remains unexplained in its grand- 
eur.'' Renan was appointed in 1862 to the chair of 
Hebrew in the College of France, })ut his opening- 
address awakened violent opposition, which resulted 
in the suspension of his lectures. In 1863, after the 
publication of his Life of Jesus^ he was removed from 
his professorship, but after an interval of seven years 
he was reappointed. He published his work on the 
ApO''stl€S in 1866, his St. Paul in 1867, and continued 
his literary activities nearly to the time of his death, in 
1892, the last of his four volumes on the History of the 
People of Israel appearing posthumously in 1893. 

Athanase Coquerel, jr., editor of the Lien., and a cele- 
brated preacher, justly takes rank among the leaders 
of the Critical School. He became in 1864 the suV)- 
ject of an excitement of little less absorbing interest 
than the sensation occasioned by Kenan. In 1851, 
Martin Paschoud, one of the Rationalistic Reformed 
pastors of Paris, selected him as his suffragan or assist- 
ant. The Consistory ratified the appointment. 

In the Reformed Church the assistant pastors do 
not hold their office by the same title as the titular 
or regular pastors. The continuance of the former 
is subject to renewal every two or three years by the 
Presbyterial Council. But the regular pastors, when 
first nominated by the Consistory, are afterwards con- 



M. coquerel's opinions. 



407 



firmed by the Government. Tliey cannot be removed 
except by tbe action of the state. This is the reason 
why so many Kationalistic pastors came into fall pos- 
session of prominent Pi'otestant pulpits in France. No 
synod, consistory, or presbytery has power to try them 
for heresy. In fact, there is no standard of doctrine by 
which heresy can be tested. There being no General 
Assembly, with power either to establish new standards 
of doctrine or to give vitality to the old ones, the pul- 
pits of the Reformed church are open to every form of 
teaching that may profess to be Christian.^ 

Coquerel's last renewal expired about the end of 
1863, when his re-appointment became necessary. But 
his decline into Rationalism had been so rapid that the 
Presbyterial Council refused to renew the mandate, and 
he lost his position as suffi'agan by a vote of twelve 
against three. He subsequently published a confession 
of his faith, addressed to his former catechumens, in 
which the only point of real defense which he substan- 
tiates is the charge of Pantheism. He strongly affirms 
his belief in the personality of God. From M. Co- 
querel's essays we can derive a correct view of his Ra- 
tionalistic principles. He affirms that his opinions on 
the trinity, original sin, the atonement, inspiration of 
the Scriptures, and other doctrines, called fundamental, 
are not a little, but altogeilier different from the ortho- 
dox views. He does not consider the Bible inspired, 
and has therefore written a work in defense of Renan, 
his " dear and learned friend." As for the Gospels, he 
finds in them the sublimest of all histories on the one 
hand, and traces of legends on the other ; doctrines and 
precepts of eternal validity in one place, and stains of 
the errors of the age in which the books were wiitten, 

^ McCliiitock, Letter of March, 1864, in The Methodist, New York. 



408 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



in another. Eeason has the right of judging all the 
truths of revelation. The Confession of Faith of the 
sixteenth century is a very good monument of the faith 
of our fathers, but should not now be imposed. The 
Apostles and Evangelists never made any claim to infal- 
libility. There are two groups of views concerning 
Christ in the New Testament : First^ that contained in 
Paul's epistles, especially in Hebrews. Paul did not 
identify Christ with God, nor did he misconceive the 
humanity of Christ, and attribute preexistence to him. 
Second, All the second group, consisting of the epistles 
of James and Peter, the Acts, and the Apocalypse, rest 
on a purely historical view. To the writers of the lat- 
ter, Jesus seemed the Messiah ; hence we have from 
them all that is extraordinary in his history. Christ 
meant in Matt. xi. 27, that he had received his 
knowledge from God. He did not refer to his own 
essence. Literal interpretation of Scripture does not 
bring us to a knowledge of Christ. His humanity, 
being all that is valuable in his character, contains the 
mystery that belongs more or less to every individual. 
His commission from God does not differ from that of 
other men. That which distinguishes him from his 
species was his knowledge of humanity and of the 
future. He had not omniscience, nor infallibility ; noth- 
ing but superior knowledge. He had his gross defects ; 
for example, his belief in the power of evil spirits. Yet 
Christ was not a real sinner, and he represented and 
realized progress without any arrest. Thus he is the 
ideal and model of humanity. t 

That which distinguishes Coquerel's views from 
Socinianism is his Christology. Contending for the 
moral purity of Christ, he holds that he was the second 
Adam. But Christ was not the Son of God. He was 



INFLUENCE OF FRENCH SKEPTICISM. 409 



SO denominated just as we term a hero the Son of Mars. 
We must look at the Scriptures in the light of reason ; 
then we shall behold the fabulous element. Many 
parts differ in quality, while some are not authentic. 
The Second Epistle of Peter, for example, was neither 
written by that apostle nor was it a product of his age. 
But authority does not rest in the letter nor in the 
leaves of Scripture. The divine spirit acts in the soul 
freely and independently of the letter. It is high time 
that we renounce the puerile, disrespectful, and contra- 
dictory worship of the letter. Coquerel died in 1875. 

The French Critical School numbered among its 
adherents many young and talented theologians, some 
of whom were distinguished for profound learning 
and literary activity. But the history of Skepticism 
discloses the fact that religious error has always 
attracted the young to its embrace. One half of the 
triumphs of infidelity are attributable to the flattering 
promises which it makes to those who have not lived 
long enough to know that infidelity is nothing but a 
colossal structure of egotism. The deluding voice says 
to the young man, " You live in a progressive age, and 
why are you not progressive yourself? Your fathers 
believed the old Confessions, imagined Christ to be di- 
vine, and the Scriptures inspired. We do not blame 
them much, for they knew no better. But, if you fol- 
low in their footsteps, the world will never give you any 
credit for originality ; your slow chariot will move on 
in the old rut ; you will never accomplish anything ; 
your generation will be iu advance of you. Be a man ! 
The field of usefulness, prominence, and honor opens 
b)efore you. Think for yourself ! The Bible is a book 
of the past, and you should have more manliness and 
independence than to be guided by its declarations." 



410 



IIISTOKY OF KATIONALISM. 



It is not surprising that the temptation to fall into 
this snare is, for many, too great to be resisted. This 
is true not only of many young Frenchmen, but also of 
large numbers of Englishmen and Americans, who are 
casting about for a permanent creed. When they yield, 
they little dream of the unhappiness in store for them. 
They never have the consolation derived from settled 
opinions ; life passes without a fixed faith ; old age be- 
comes miserable ; and death, however much it may 
appear to be a relief, is a step into darkness and 
uncertainty. 



CHAPTEE XVII. 



FRANCE CONTINUED : EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY OPPOSING 
RATIONALISM. 

The influences operating against the integrity and 
progress of the Protestant church of France are opposed 
by vigoi'ous agencies. From the clergy and laity men 
of eminent endowments have arisen who, in ecclesiastical 
councils, and through the press, have defended evan- 
gelical Christianity with a spirit worthy of their Hugue- 
not ancestors. Their task has been herculean. At every 
point of the horizon infidelity has appeared, and sought 
to gain a hearing in Paris. Romanism has crippled the 
advance of truth among the masses. The priesthood 
has enjoyed the favor of the government. But the 
faithful and learned adherents to orthodoxy in all parts 
of the republic have been able to cope with their an- 
tagonists. Inspired by such men as Vinet and Monod, 
they have not stood merely on the defensive, but have 
been constantly aggressive. 

Foremost of the modern reformers of France stands 
the name of M. Edmond de Pressense. He was a vis^or- 
ous writer, took an active part in public religious 
movements, and edited the Hevue Chretienne, a theo- 
logical monthly, which, in both the ability and ortho- 
doxy exhibited in its contents, has no superior in the 
world. Throuo^h this medium M. de Pressense was 
able to keep up a constant attack upon his adversaries. 



412 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



and to discover all their subterfuges as fast as tliey ap- 
peared. He produced no complete theological system, 
because lie published his views mostly as replies to the 
assaults of Rationalism. Yet, by an analysis of his writ- 
ings, we find that he entertained such opinions as do 
equal honor to his devout spirit and gigantic intellect. 

M. de Pressense believed that it was the duty of 
the Church not to create a moderate Rationalism to 
take the place of the bolder system, but to engage anew 
in a vigorous warfare against a school that would con- 
test the divine basis on which Christianity rests. Such, 
he held, is the task of the Christian philosophy of the 
present day. Evangelical Protestantism is everywhere 
manifesting a necessity for reorganization, and the need 
is imperative. The Church of the pi-esent day is en- 
gaged in an inner crisis, wliich, in one respect, is legiti- 
mate ; for it has the great burden of expurgation and 
reconstruction upon it. The burden consists in separat- 
ing the immortal truth of the gospel from human im- 
perfections, and in finding for it a more complete expres- 
sion. The present crisis has dangers and temptations 
which, in our day, render moral and intellectual life 
very difficult, and multiply shipwrecks before our eyes. 
" We wish," M. de Pressense declares for himself and 
his co-laborers, "to serve the cause of evangelical the- 
ology, and nothing else. We do not lift a standard 
which would summon all opinions and systems without 
distinction. We stand upon the position that there 
is a positive revelation, which is not the most distin- 
guished product of human reason, but a divine work 
of redemption by him to whom we appeal as the Son of 
Man and the Son of God, who ' died for our sins and 
rose again for our justification.' It is in the Holy 
Scriptures that we find the revelation which supplies 



OPimOI^S OF M. DE PEESSEITSE. 



413 



the immortal wants of our conscience. Apostolical 
Cliristianity does not come to us as the first theological 
elaboration, tlie first system in a series. It is Chris- 
tianity itself, and consequently tlie primitive type, from 
wMcli we ouglit never to wander. It is the norm and 
rule of theology. Within these limits we freely admit 
the liberty of thought. Variety of opinions has noth- 
ing which frightens us; and we would regard uni- 
formity and unanimity on secondary points as a fearful 
evil."i 

The purity of the Protestant theology of France 
was an aim constantly before M. Pressense. He held 
that, notwithstanding the diversity of its formulae, this 
theology is distinguished by two features : Jirst, it 
accepts the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and 
considers them alone as containing the normal type 
of Christian thought ; second^ it believes firmly in re- 
demption ; that is, in the salvation of ruined humanity 
brought about by the sacrifice of the Man-God. Though 
ihe faU of man was great, it was not absolute. Man 
was ruined by apostasy, but he was not left destitute of 
all higher life. He retained some vestige of his primal 
nature. A sense of the divine, a religious aptitude, 
and the longing to return to God, subsist in his heart. 
These render his redemption possible; for the moral 
law, which had been vindicated by the terrible conse- 
quences of the fall, is maintained in all its integrity in 
the restoration of the fallen creature. A certain har- 
mony was necessary between man and God in order to 
salvation. Had our nature been thoroughly perverted, 
no contact would have been possible. We would 
not have had the capacity to receive from God that 
^great gift which was the only mode of repairing the 

* Sevue GTiretienne^ Feb., 1861. 

28 



414 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



fall of beings created in his image and formed to pos- 
sess him.^ 

This being the condition of man, M. de Pressense 
maintains that the result of this divine teaching was to 
convince him of his ^veakness and evoke the desire for 
salvation. Therefore Chilstianity comes in to supply a 
felt Avant of human nature. Here is the first point of | 
contact between conscience and revelation. The Cross is 
not simply a testimony to the Father's love, like the . 
flowers at our feet, or the stai'ry sky above our head. ' 
It is the altar of the great sacrifice which restores man 
to God and God to man. Christ is for us a Saviour as 
well as a Revealer.* There is one perfection which can 
be perceived by neither the eye of the body nor by that 
of the soul, unless it be revealed by a supernatural 
fact. We mean the mercy of God. Pardon does not 
consist in the pure and simple abrogation of condemna- 
tion ; nor can it restore guilty humanity to communion 
with God while the state of revolt lasts. Humanity 
can be saved only by returning to God, and it will not 
return to God until the divine law has been perfectly 
filled by it. Christ alone is capable of completely 
carrying out the divine law. The obedience must go as 
far as sacrifice, for the fall of man demands it. By 
coming here Christ took upon himself the wrath of 
God. He who was without sin was treated like a sin- | 
ner. He suffered and died, but his suffei-ings and death 
rose to the height of a free sacrifice of love and obedi- 
ence. Condemnation, thus accepted, is no longer con- 
demnation. It is an act of union with God, ion acte 7 f 
pamtewr^ — a redemption. 

The Bible, according to M. de Pressense, is not a 

* Religions lefore- Christ, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1862. 
' Le Redempteur^ Paris, 1854. 



M. DE pressense's opmioiss. 



415 



metaphysical geometry, but a description of the strug- 
gle of divine love with human liberty. This great Bible 
history, if we consider it at the time when the Redeem- 
er accomplished our salvation, stands before us as the 
most striking consecration of the moral idea. Redemp- 
tion is the painfully reestablished agreement between 
the human and the divine will by a mysterious sacri- 
fice. It is the most perfect reciprocal penetration of 
the divine and human by means of liberty. If the 
moral idea be consecrated by Christ, it will lead to the 
Gospel. No one will become a Christian unless he has 
determined to listen to his conscience, and never ques- 
tion concerning moral certainty. We know of no other 
corner stone in morality or in religion. But, in order 
to bring the truths of the Gospel home to the heart, 
there must be religious liberty. Christianity is the re- 
ligion of love, but to what could a reconciliation amount 
which is not free ? It is the religion of freedom ; and 
God, in order to save us, has need of freedom. 

M. de Pressense, in his able discussion on the reli- 
gious bearings of the French Revolution, proves from 
an historical stand-point the absolute necessity of the 
separation of Church and State. His excellent work 
is entitled, The Church and the French Revolution ; a 
History of the Relations of Church and State from 
1789 ^ 1802. The motto upon the title-page, derived 
jointly from Mirabeau and Cavour, will indicate the 
spirit of the book : " Remember that God is as necessary 
as liberty to the French people — The Free Church in 
the Free State." 
I This strong champion of the truth maintained the 
cause of religious freedom, both by voice and pen, in 
councils of Church and State. He was a member of 



416 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



and was elected a life senator in 1883. He laid down 
Ms work and liis life together in 1891, at the age of 67, 
and his name is still a tower of strength. 

The Evangelical School had an able defender among 
the laity, the distinguished scholar and statesman, M. 
Guizot. No one took a deeper interest in the recent 
controversy from its inception to the end of his life 
than that venerable man. It had been supposed for 
some time that he was meditating a reply to Kenan's 
Life of Jesus, We have, as the ripest fruit of his 
graceful and prolific pen, his Meditations tipon the Es- 
sence and Present State of the Christian Religion, a 
work which is not only a fitting answer to his country- 
man's attack on the Gospels, but has served equally 
well as an antidote to the later skeptical tendencies of 
French theology. 

According to M. Guizot, there is a great intellectual 
and social revolution now in progress. Its character- 
istics and tendencies are the scientific spirit, and the 
preponderance of the democratic principle and of politi- 
cal liberty. Christianity has submitted to tests and 
trials, and it must pass through those of the present 
day. It has surmounted all others, and so it will over- 
come this. Its essence and origin would not be divine 
if it did not adapt itself to all the different forms of 
human institutions. Christian people must not deceive 
themselves as to the nature of the present struggle, the 
perils which it threatens, and the legitimate arms with 
which to oppose infidelity. Skeptics attack the Chris- 
tian religion with brutal fanaticism and dexterous learn 
ing. They appeal to sincere convictions, and the worst 
passions. Some contest Christianity as false, others re- 
ject it as too exacting and imposing excessive restraint. 

Concerning the Church and its relations to the 



M. guizot's meditations. 



417 



enemies of evangelical faith, M. Guizot asks, " Does it 
comprehend properly and carry on suitably the war- 
fare in which it is engaged ? Does it tend to reestab- 
lish a real peace, and active harmonious relations be- 
tween itself and that general society in the midst of 
which it is living V In order to answer these inquiries, 
he defines the church. "It is not one branch, but the 
whole body of Christ on earth. Therefore, when men 
deny the supernatural world, the inspiration of the 
Scriptures, and the divinity of Jesus Christ, they really 
assail the whole body of Christians — Komanists, Prot- 
estants, and Greeks. They are virtually attempting to 
destroy the foundations of faith in all the belief of 
Christians, whatever their particular differences of re- 
ligious opinion or forms of ecclesiastical government. 
AU Christian churches live by faith. 'No form of gov- 
ernment, monarchical or republican, concentrated or 
diffused, suffices to maintain a church. There is no 
authority so strong, and no liberty so broad, as to be 
able in a religious society to dispense with the neces- 
sity of faith. What is it that unites in a church if it is 
not faith? Faith is the bond of souls. When the 
foundations of their common faith are attacked, the 
differences existing between Christian chui'ches upon 
special questions, or the diversities of their organization 
or government, become secondary interests. It is from 
a common peril that they have to defend themselves, 
or they must be content to see dried up the common 
source from which they all derive sustenance and life.^ " 
In the Meditation, published in 1864, M. Guizot 
discusses the essence of Christianity, creation, revela- 
tion, inspiration of the Scriptures, God according to the 
Biblical account, and Jesus according to the Gospel . 

' Meditations on the Essence of Christianity. Preface, pp. 6-10. 



418 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



narrative. To complete his work, the author published 
in 1865 three more parts. In the second, he examines 
the authenticity of the Scriptures, the primary causes 
of the foundation of Christianity, the gi'eat religious 
crisis in tlie sixteentli century whicli divided the Church 
and Europe between Roman Catholicism and Protes- 
tantism, and finally those different anti-Christian crises 
which at different 2^eriods and in different countries 
have set in question and impei'iled Christianity itself, 
but which dano'ers it has ever surmounted. 

The third Meditation gives a survey of the present 
internal and external conditiou of the Christian relig- 
ion. The re2:eneration of tlie Roman Catholic and 
Protestant churches at the commencement of the nine- 
teenth century is portrayed. The author then describes 
the impulse imparted by the Spiritualistic Philosophy, 
and the op]^osition it met with in Materialism, Panthe- 
ism, and Skepticism. He concludes by exposing the 
fundamental error of these systems as the avowed 
and active enemies of Christianity. In the fourth 
series there is a characterization of the future destiny 
of the Christian religion, and an indication of the 
coui'se by which it is called upon to conquer completely 
the earth and then to sway it moi'ally. M. Guizot, hav-' 
ing spent his life in political excitement, resolved to 
occupy his remaining years in aiding the cause of re- 
ligion. " I have passed," says he, " thirty-five years of 
my life in struggling, on a bustling arena, for the estab- 
lishment of political liberty, and the maintenance of 
order as established by law. I have learned, in the 
labors and trials of this struggle, the real worth of 
Christian faith and of Christian liberty. God permits 
me, in the repose of my retreat, to consecrate to their 
cause what remains to me of life and of strength. It 



THE PROTESTAIS^T CONFERENCES. 



419 



is the most salutary favor and the greatest honor that 
I can receive from his goodness." 

We may now ask, What is the fruit of the labors of 
MM. de Pressense, Guizot, and their heroic coadjutors ? 
Is the spirit of French Protestantism against , them, and 
are the majority of the clergy yielding to the insinuat- 
ing arguments of the skeptical school ? These questions 
are in part answered by the repeated action of the 
Fi'ench Protestant Conferences. The Conferences are 
not composed of members formally admitted, but of 
the pastors and elders who attend the spring anniver- 
saries, and choose to participate in them. The Genera] 
Conference includes all denominations of Protestants ; 
the special, only the ministers of the Lutheran and 
Reformed churches who constitute together the Na- 
tional Protestant Church. Whatever action may be 
adopted by either body is a safe index of the sentiment 
pervading the entire mass of French Protestantism. 
In the General Conference which convened in Paris in 
the spring of 1863, there was a violent debate between 
the Rationalistic and Evangelical members. M. de 
Pressense presided. Pastor Bersier made a remarkable 
speech, in which he declared that true science, light, 
liberty, and progress are on the side of earnest faith 
in revelation, the atonement, and the other great doc- 
trines of Christian truth. At the conclusion of the 
discussion, the following protest was carried by an 
overwhelming majority : 

" The Conference, considering that the faithful may 
be troubled by systems of the present day, attacking 
the very basis of Christianity and the Church ; that 
these negations are produced in the name of science, 
and given as the definitive results of the elaboration of 
modern thought, protests in the name of Christian 



420 



HISTORr OF EATIONALISM. 



faith, 'of Ciristian conscience, of Christian experience^ 
of Christian science, against every doctrine which tends 
to overturn the existence of supernatural order, of the 
divine authority of the Scriptures, of the divinity of 
Jesus Christ, and all that touches the very essence of 
Christianity ; such as it has been professed in all timeSy 
by all churches, marked with the seal of religious 
power and faithfulness. The Conference invites the 
faithful to beware of these systems of science, a thou- 
sand times contradicted by the incessant transforma- 
tions of the human mind ; and exhorts the different 
churches to make efforts and sacrifices to favor the de* 
velopment and progress of Christian science." 

The Rationalists hoped that by spending a year in 
the industrious promulgation of their opinions, they 
would gain some official recognition or power in the 
ensuing Conference. Accordingly, when the General 
Conference of 1864 convened, they demanded the pas- 
sage of a resolution by which ministers would be freed 
from all authority, and permitted to preach any doc- 
trine, no doctrine, or a denial of all Christianity, as they 
might choose. The debate was very animated, and 
lasted three days. But the result was all that the most 
sanguine friends of orthodoxy could desire. The Con- 
ference adopted the following declaration, by a large 
majority : 

" WhereaSj For some years, pastors and professors of 
theology have expressed opinions which affect not only 
the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, but also 
the most elementary doctrines of Christianity ; the 
Conferences declare that it is an abuse of power and a 
spiritual tyranny for a minister of Jesus Christ to take 
advantage of his position to propagate directly or in- 
directly, ideas contrary to the fundamental doctrines of 



M. guizot's DECLAEATIOI^'. 



421 



Cliristianity, such as the authority of the Bible, the 
divinity and redemption of Jesus Christ, which are con- 
tained in all the Protestant liturgies." 

M. Guizot, who was an elder in the Keformed Church, 
took a prominent part in the session of the special Con- 
ference in 1864. He introduced a declaration of prin- 
ciples, the character of which may be judged by the 
folio wins: extract : " We have full faith, first, in the 
supernatural power of God in the government of the 
woi'ld, and especially in the establishment of the Chris- 
tian religion ; second, in the divine and supernatural in- 
spiration of the Holy Books, as well as in their sover- 
eign authority in religious matters ; third, in the eternal 
divinity and miraculous birth as well as in the resur- 
rection of our Lord Jesus Christ, God-man, Saviour, and 
Eedeemer of men. We are convinced that these articles 
of the Christian relio;ion are also those of the Keformed 
Church, which has plainly acknowledged them." " Gen- 
tlemen," said he, in support of his proposition, " I call 
your attention to one important fact. Look around 
you ! The attacks against the bases of Christianity are 
seen everywhere, in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, 
England, and France. I fear nothing, provided ag- 
gression meets Avith resistance. ... I have entire 
confidence in the cause of Christianity. But man is 
God's workman ; it is by our faith and labor that the 
Christian religion must be defended. Gentlemen, we 
have before us a responsible position and great duties. 
We are the vanguard of all Christianity ; we have be- 
hind us all the Christian communions. Let us show 
ourselves equal to this great task, and firmly resolve to 
accomplish it." 

The debate resulted in the adoption of the declara- 
tion by a vote of one hundred and forty-one against 
twenty-three. 



422 



IIISTOKY OF ^^AT10^'ALISM. 



The liberalistic members of the Conference of 1864 
opposed the calling of the National Synod, whicli had 
not been convened since that of Loudon in 1659. A 
call for the National Synod having been duly issued in 
November, 1871, it met June 6, 1872, m Paris. M. 
Colani was the most brilliant and aV)le representative 
of the libei'al school at this Synod, wliile Guizot was 
the mai'ked leader of the ortliodox portion of the body, 
whicli Avas in the majority. M. Bois was the chief 
spokesman of the orthodox, and his proposition, adopt- 
ed on June 20, 1872, as a formal declaration of the 
doctrine of the church, was in substance, that " The 
Reformed Church of France declares that she remains 
constant to the principles of faith and liberty on whicli 
she is founded. With her fathers and martyrs in the 
Confession of La Rochelle, with all the Church of the 
Reformation in their different creeds, she proclaims the 
sovereign authority of the Holy Scriptures in matters 
of faith, and salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, onl}^ 
son of God, who died for our offenses and was raised 
again for our justification. She therefore preserves and 
maintains at the basis of her teaching, her worship and 
her discipline, the grand Christian facts represented in 
her sacraments, celebrated in her religious solemnities, 
and expressed in her liturgies, notably in the Confes- 
sion of Sins, the Apostles' Creed, and the liturgy of 
the Lord's Sujiper." The vote stood 61 for and 45 
against this declaration. By a vote of 62 to 39, candi- 
dates for the ministry were required to declare their 
adherence to this formal expression of the faith of the 
Church. But it has been found impracticable to cany 
the decision of the Synod of 1872 into effect because 
of the evenly divided parties of liberals and orthodox 
in the various consistories. 



THE MC ALL MISSIONS. 



423 



The Protestants of France now number about one 
million of members, about nine-tenths being of the Re- 
formed or Calvinistic Church, which has a flourishing 
theological school at Montauban. The Lutherans ai*e 
next in numbers and have a seminary, formerly in 
Strasburg, now in Paris. The Free Church and the 
Methodist Church have done vigorous and successful 
evangelizing. 

Worthy of praise and distinguished for their spirit 
and success are the McAll Missions. In August, 1871, 
after the Commune 'had been brought to an end, Rob- 
ert Whitaker McAll, who for twenty-three years had 
served as pastor in Congregational churches in Man- 
chester, Birmingham, and other places where his labors 
led him into active contact and sympathy with work- 
ing people, visited Paris. In conversation a working- 
man told him that the common people in France would 
hear and accept a pure gospel. Mr. McAll and his 
wife began their mission early in 1872 in a shop sit- 
uated on a narrow street in a communistic neighbor- 
hood. This union of all Christians in labor to save the 
fallen has been successful, and, though deprived of its 
leader by the death of McAll in 1893, has become a 
steadily growing stream of Christian influence until its 
branches have extended to the leadins; cities of the 
entire country. It has about 125 halls, each a centre 
of evangelical and charitable activity, nearly fifty being 
in Paris, and the rest in the departments, in Corsica 
and Algiers. The American McAll Association was 
organized in 1883 for the purpose of raising funds for 
this noble work. 

Paul Janet, of the Sorbonne, uttered in 1876 a 
strong, clear voice out of the confusion and discord of 
the many varying phases of French materialism and 



424 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



atheistic philosophy in his Final Causes. Louis Pas- 
teur has maintained a fei'vent spiritual interest in re- 
ligion in the midst of intense application to scientific 
research. As to spontaneous generation he says : 
^' There is no case known at the present day .in which 
we can affirm that microscopic creatures have come 
into existence without germs, without parents like 
themselves." 

That French Protestantism is fully awake to the 
great work that devolves upon it is attested by the 
following words from one of its leading journals. The 
Signal^ which were published in 1889: "If the re- 
public lives, it will have to make its peace with 
religion. If the monarchy returns, it w^ill have to 
ask itself whether, after having served religion, it 
^\ill not singularly injure it. A clerical republic or a 
clerical monarchy would be alike a scourge ; nor would 
either be a solution. French society is now like the 
bow^els of a volcano ; we can do nothing against this 
monster if God has decided that this baptism is neces- 
sary for France ; but if God protects France, he will 
give us a government w^hich wall bring back the 
Church of France to the ways of the Chiistian spirit, 
without favoring the enterprises of Ultramontanism or 
the violent tyranny of atheism. A government cannot 
ignore the religious question. Religion being the soul 
of the people, how can the State be indifferent to it ? 
how feign to ignore its existence ? Neither hostility 
nor submission should be the device of the Church. 
Independent minds will withdraw from Ulti-amonta- 
nism, and the wise wall approach Protestantism, and 
this wall put an end to its disputes, and offer to France 
a Church that will give it an escape from papal des- 
potism and the orgies of anarchy." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



SWITZERLAND: ORTHODOXY IN GENEVA, AND THE NEW 
SPECULATIVE RATIONALISM IN ZURICH. 

Switzerland has failed to retain the influence over - 
the theological thought of Europe enjoyed by her in 
the days ,of Zwingli and Calvin. Impressions, instead 
of being given, have of late only been received. France 
and Germany have contributed their respective phases 
of theology, the French Cantons adopting the opinions 
emanating from the former country, and the German 
those from the latter. We must not therefore expect to 
find a very wide difference either respecting theology 
or practical religion between the Swiss and their two 
influential neighbors. 

When the Skepticism of Voltaire and his disciples 
was penetrating the French mind the Reformed Church 
of Switzerland did not long remain unaffected by it. 
While that crafty man was enjoying his romantic retreat 
at Ferney, he was visited and even flattered by persons 
who had taken upon themselves the vows of the Chris- 
tian ministry. The pastors of Geneva were regarded by 
the Encyclopaedists as sympathizers and co-laborers in 
overthrowing the distinctive doctrines of the Gospel. 
In the early part of the nineteenth century there was 
in Switzerland, as in Germany, a strife between the old 
confessional faith and Rationalism. But in Germany 



426 



HISTORY OF RATIOI^ALISM. 



Reason attacked the contents of the Scriptures, while 
in Switzerland the attempt was made to reduce all re- 
vealed truth to a system of uatural religion. Rationalism 
in the Swiss Church was Arianism and Socinianism re- 
vived.^ It swept away the sti'ong Calvinism of the old 
Genevan theology. The clergy were little better than 
the English Deists. D'Alem])ert says, "All the relig- 
ion that many of the niinisteis of Geneva have is a 
complete Socinianism, rejecting everything called mys- 
tery, and supposing that the first principle of a true 
religion is to propose nothing to be received as a matter 
of faith which strikes against reason." Rousseau de- 
clares that those who filled the pulpits of that venerable 
city had no answer to the question, " Is Christ divine ? " 

Theological training was neglected. The professors, 
like the pastors, committed themselves to an undis- 
guised system of Rationalistic Unitarianism. M. Bost, 
writing in 1825, says that, " for more than thirty years 
the ministers who have gone out of our schools of 
theology, to serve either the churches of our own land 
or those of France and other foreign countries, have not 
received one single lecture on the truths which exclu- 
sively belong to revelation, such as the redemption of 
mankind by the death of Christ, the justification of the 
Saviour by faith, the corruption of our nature, the di- 
vinity of our Saviour, etc. In theology we were taught 
nothing but what are called the dogmas of natural relig- 
ion. The extent to which this practical incredulity 
was carried is clear from the fact, elsewhere unheard of, 
I suspect, in the annals of the Protestant churches, 
that, excepting for a lecture in the Hebrew language, 
when the Bible was used simply as a Hebrew book, and 

^ Hagenbaoli, Kirchengeschichte d. 18. und 19. Jahrhundsrts^ vol. ii., 
p. 416. 



MADAME DE KRUDENER. 



427 



not for anything it contained, the word of God was 
never used throughout our course ; in particular, the New 
Testament never appeared, either as a language-book or 
for any other purpose ; there was no need of the New 
Testament whatever, in order to complete our four 
years' course in theology ; in other words, that book, 
especially in the original, was not at all among the 
number of books required in order to accomplish the 
career of our studies for the sacred ministry." ^ 

The VSnirahle Oornpagnie^ comprising the clergymen 
and theological professors of Geneva, went so far, in 
1817, as to impose upon all candidates for ordination to 
the ministry, the obligation not to preach on the two 
natures of Christ, original sin, predestination, and other 
received doctrines of their confession. As might have 
been expected, practical piety was thrown into the back- 
ground. Children were not instructed in the Scriptures, 
and the churches were attended by small congregations, 
who were favored with no better gospel than the com- 
bined opinions of Voltaire and the German Rational- 
ists. There were here and there loud protests against 
this apostasy. The Canton Vaud was benefited by the 
labors of that excellent woman, Madame de Krtidener, 
who exchanged a life of Parisian gayety and afiluence 
for humble labors among the poor and uninstructed 
Swiss. She loved to sit upon a wooden bench and 
teach all who came to her the truths of the Bible and 
the necessity of a regenerated heart. Her influence was 
powerful in Geneva after the commencement of the 
evangelical movement. Another counteracting agency 
was a sect of Methodists, nicknamed the " Momiers," 
who had gone thither from England, and were rebuking 
the prevalent Rationalism by every available means.^ 

^Alexander, Switzerland and the Swiss Churches^ p. 194. 
^ Kurtz, Church History, vol. ii., p. 334. 



428 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



From the outset Geneva had been the centre of the 
great religious decline. The Theological Academy found- 
ed by Calvin had become the nursery of as injurious er- 
rors as had emanated from Halle in the period of Wolff's 
triumphant career. Its chairs were occupied by the very 
teachers described by M. Bost, men in every respect un- 
worthy to prepare students for the Christian pulpit. But, 
by the providence of Him who watches every juncture 
with a Father's care, a new influence was brought to 
bear upon the Academy, and through it upon the whole 
Protestant Church of Switzerland. Eobert Haldane, 
having sold his large estate in Scotland, directed his 
attention to the moral dearth at Geneva by endeavor- 
ing to imbue the students with his own evangelical 
opinions and earnest spirit. His labors were eminently 
successful. Many of the young men became converted, 
and for the first time had a clear conception of the 
great work before them. It was through Haldane that 
Merle d'Aubigne, Adolphe Monod, Malan, and others 
of their school, were inspired with the spirit of the 
Gospel. Switzerland can never be too grateful to God 
for sending such a man at that important crisis. 

The immediate issue of this awakening was the or- 
ganization of the Evangelical Dissenting Church. All 
who had grown dissatisfied with the formalism and 
Rationalism of the National Church came to the new 
fold and co-operated in the work of reformation. A 
school of theology, established in Geneva, was visited 
by students who came seeking an education that might 
enable them to relieve the moral wants of the masses. 
Gaussen, the author of La Theopneustie^ was one of the 
professors. The new Church soon found in him its 
leader. He died in 1863, but his long life was of 
valuable service to the kingdom Christ. Besides 



ALEXANDEE EODOLPHE VINET. 



429 



reviving and reorganizing the Sunday school system in 
Oeneva, and personally superintending the religious in- 
struction of the children, for whom he wrote his inim- 
itable Catechisms^ he became the author of many theo- 
logical works adapted to the wants of clergy and laity. 
In company with a few friends, he published the popu- 
lar Swiss version of the New Testament. It occasioned 
liim real joy when he witnessed late in life the improve- 
ment of the National Church of Switzerland. But it 
must be confessed that the parent has yet much to learn 
and accomplish before reaching the high evangelical 
status now occupied by the earnest daughter. 

The name of Vinet belongs to the whole of Protest- 
ant Europe, and is identified with the revival of religious 
sentiment in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and France. 
His excellent writings have familiarized him to the theo- 
logical readers of Great Britain and the United States. 
The separation of Church and State was one of the lead- 
ing aims of his life, and he eloquently contended for it 
whenever occasion offered. In 183Y he accepted the invita- 
tion of the government of his native canton to take charge 
of the professorship of Theology in the Seminary in 
Lausanne. Already profoundly impressed with the opin- 
ions of Pascal, he admired the more evangelical portion 
of Schleiermacher's theology. Combining these, he 
originated the only native theological system which 
Switzerland has produced since Calvin's day.^ In all 
his works he manifests profound thought and erudition. 
His Homiletics and Pastoral Theology have been used 
as text-books in many theological seminaries. 

The spirit now dominant at Geneva clearly indicates 
the success of these efforts toward reform. The con- 
gregations have largely increased ; various humanitarian 

^ Farrar, Critical History of Free TJiougTit^ p. 444. 
29 



430 



HISTOKY OF EATIONALISM. 



enterprises have been vigorously prosecuted ; societies 
for the circulation of religious knowledge have been 
founded ; and the laity have come to the assistance of 
the clergy in labors for the social and moral elevation 
of the masses. For more than a half century young 
men have been judiciously trained in theology, and 
Switzerland is now supplying many prominent French 
pulpits with her graduates. 

The present sojourner in Geneva finds but few rem- 
nants of that skeptical preaching and general I'eligious 
indifference so lamentably prevalent before the rise of 
tlie Evangelical Dissenting Church. Mr. Levalois, who 
was an avowed skeptic, describes a veiy different scene 
from that which once so delighted Rousseau. Coming 
from the source they do, his woixls are a valuable testi- 
mony to the religious growth of the mother-city of 
French Protestantism. " I now come," says this travel- 
er, "to the essential characteristics of Geneva. Before 
being literary and liberal, the Genevan is Christian. In 
Geneva the free-thinking stranger is advised of Chris- 
tianity. In the souls of men, instead of meeting with 
no resistance, no solidity, — as, for instance, among the 
greater part of our Parisian Catholics, — instead of find- 
ing himself in the face of a creed mechanically repeated, 
of a memory and not of a conscience, — you feel your- 
self in contact with an individual who will believe, who 
can believe, who is in full possession of the why of his 
belief Nothing in the world is to me so sacred as sin- 
cerity in intelligent faith. Just as I despise certain time- 
serving Catholics, who are converted because they dread 
socialism, or because they dread the Empire, so much do 
I respect the man who freely attaches himself to the 
Gospel, devotes himself to Christ, and prays to Him. 
Does this imply that I return from Geneva a Protest- 



LECTUEES IN GENEVA. 



431 



ant ? No ; I have not been converted^ but, I repeat, 
admised. I have seen Christianity working, not only in 
churches, but, which is much more edifying, in indi- 
viduals. Yes, I have seen it in turns the inspirer of 
language, the spring of actions, the spur and the dis- 
cipline, rule and support of the future, impregnating, so 
to speak, the flesh and the spirit. Such a spectacle ex- 
cites one to reflection. We have been in too great 
haste to exclaim, Christianity is dead ! An hour's con- 
versation with two or three Genevese suffices to con- 
vince us that if Christianity is dead it is not yet 
buried." ^ 

The course of lectures delivered in the Theological 
Academy of Geneva in the winter of 1862-63 may be 
taken as an illustration of the character of the in- 
struction imparted in that influential institution. M. 
Secretan delivered learned lectures on " Theism." He 
showed that the objections which can be raised, on the 
ground of natural religion, against the existence and 
personality of God, lose all their force on Chris- 
tian ground ; therefore Hegelianism has no base. M. 
NaviUe, in his course on " Spiritualism," summoned the 
resources of his learning and genius to aid him in his 
heroic combat with every form of current materialism. 
Pastor Coulin lectured on Christian Works." It was 
an eloquent appeal for renewed Christian activity. 
MM. Bungener, Bret, and Rorich lectured on " Christian 
Life ; " M. Gaberel on the " Part taken by Geneva at the 
time of the Reformation ; " and also on the Present 
Literary and Religious state of Germany ; " M. Archi- 
nard on the " Ancient Religious Edifices of Switzer- 
land ; " M. Aug. Bost on the First Fifteen Centuries 
of the History of Mankind ; " and M. De Gasparin on 

^ D Opinion Rationale, l^^Z. 



432 



mSTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



the " Family Life, its Organization and Duties " In ad 
dition to these, there were lectures on detached subjects, 
such as religious prejudices, the study of the Bible by 
simple-hearted believers, drunkenness, the religious edu- 
cation of children, the instruction of catechumens, the 
dissipation of cities, and the duty of evangelization.^ 

Of the German cantons, Basle has been the only 
one which has successfully resisted the encroachments 
of Rationalism. The University has fully recovered 
fi'om the influence of De Wette, and the professors now 
stand in the front rank of evangelical thinkers. The 
Mission House has been a highly useful agency. 
Though not a century old, it has already trained seven 
hundred missionaries, neai'ly three hundred of whom 
are still living and actively engaged in evangelizing 
the dark places of the eai'th. The people ai'e un- 
willing to permit any minister to occupy one of their 
pulpits whom they have reason to suspect of skeptical 
opinions. The infidel Rumpf was excluded in 1858 
from the list of candidates for the ministry, and all 
his subsequent efforts for restoration failed in the 
chief council. A similar occurrence took place in 
Berne in 1847, upon the calling of Zeller to the theo- 
logical professorship. 

We now turn to a less evangelical part of Switzer- 
land. Zurich is one of the acknowledged centres of 
European Bationalism. Its spiritual decline has been 
a sad one during the last sixty years. In 1839, 
Strauss, the author of the Life of Jesus ^ was invited by 
the chief council to take a theological chair in the semi« 
nary. But the people arising as one man against the 
measure, the appointment failed, the council was over- 
thrown by a popular revolution, and the city long paid 

^ Christian Wor^, Aug., 1863. 



ELECTION I^f USTER. 



433 



a pension to the disappointed aspirant. But in lament- 
able contrast with that event is one which occurred a 
little later. In 1864, when the little town of Uster 
was about to elect a pastor, the candidate declared 
himself " a friend of progress and light." Some relig- 
ious men, unwilling to see their children placed under 
the instruction of a skeptic, took upon themselves the 
task of showing in what the " progress " consisted. 
They accordingly published a notice to their fellow 
citizens in which they set forth the avowed opinions of 
their candidate. The document asserted that he be- 
lieved the Bible to be a tissue of fictions and fables ; 
Jesus a sinful man like others, neither risen from the 
dead, nor sitting in the glory of his Father ; no one 
can assert with positiveness a life beyond the grave; 
and the opinion that we are reconciled to God by 
Jesus Christ, merely a superstition and a day-dream. 
The authors of the circular besought the ecclesiastical 
council to deliver them and their children from the 
promulgation of such doctrines, and further reminded 
them that every pastor on entering upon his functions 
must swear to preach faithfully the word of God, both 
law and gospel, according to the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the evangelical Keformed church. The council 
took no notice of the remonstrance, though the candi- 
date did not deny the charges. He was elected by 
eight hundred and sixty -five votes against one hundred 
and forty-five. In the church, where the result was 
proclaimed, the acclamations were so loud that they 
shook the windows." In the evening there was a 
serenade, accompanied by rockets and blue lights.^ 

The only representative of evangelical doctrines in 
the theological faculty of Zurich in 1862 was a tutor, 

^ Semaine Beligieuse, Geneva: 1864. 



434 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



supported by a piivate society. The most effective 
means for propagating Rationalism from that city was 
periodical literature. The leading publications were 
The Church of the Present and Voices of the Times. 
The latter journal was commenced in 1859. Its editor, 
Lang, was a frequent contributor to prominent Ration- 
alistic serials of Germany, particularly the Protestant 
Church Gazette of Bei-lin. He pul)lished, besides other 
works, A System of Doctrine and A March through 
the Christian Woiid. Professor Biedermann, an in- 
structor in Ziirich, embodied his skeptical opinions 
in a Manual of Christian Doctrine, for the use of the 
youth in Swiss colleges. Dr. Volckmai*, another theo- 
logical professor of the same city, advanced in his nu- 
merous works on primitive Christianity opinions even 
more radical than those of Strauss or the Tubingen 
School. All those men were members, in good stand- 
ing, of the Reformed Church of Switzerland.' 

The Rationalistic works in question are studiously 
adapted to the common mind. They contain a complete 
system, which ^ve term the New Speculative Rational- 
ism. It declares a strong attachment to Protestantism, 
and professes to cultivate a much higher development 
of Christian life than was aimed at by its German pred- 
ecessor. Like the Groningen school of Holland, it lays 
stress on the character of Christ. It proposes to estab- 
lish a new church, which shall have a wider door for 
the entrance of Protestant Christians than that opened 
by the confessions. The present fold is entirely too 
small; the new Rationalism would organize one of 
collossal popular dimensions. " Our church," say these 
teachers of Ziirich, " is trutk and morality. Whoever 

^ Riggenbach, Ber Heutige Rationalismus 'besonders in der DeuUchen 
Schweitz. Basel: 1862. 



SWISS RATIOT^ALISTS. 



435 



thinks upon these things and strives for them shall find 
B place in it." Their opinions are the direct result of 
the Hegelian philosophy applied speculatively to the 
obsolete, destructive Rationalism of Germany. 

The Holy Scriptures. Protestantism mistakes 
itself in treating the Bible as authority. Though the 
Scriptures declare our relations to God, they should not 
escape our free criticism and occasional censure. Every 
man has a right to interpret them for himself, and on 
his individual understanding of their contents he should 
feel bound to act. No man has a right to impose his 
opinion- upon another, nor has any church a guarantee 
for obliging its members to subscribe to a fixed creed. 
All deductions from the positive statements of the 
Scriptures are mere human opinions, and should only 
receive the credit due to them as such. What are con- 
fessions but human opinions ? 

Christ. Strauss was wrong in taking his cold view 
of Jesus. There was a real historical personage whom 
we properly call Jesus. Nothing is gained, but every- 
thing lost by resolving all the statements of the gospels 
into myths. It is through Christ that salvation is at- 
tained, for Christianity is the reconciliation of God and 
man as revealed to us in the consciousness and life of 
Christ. He is the end of the law, the second Adam, 
the fulfilment of prophecy, the head of a renovated 
humanity. In him we find the revelation of a new 
religious principle in man, a real unity with God, a 
'filial adoption, freedom from natural corruption, the 
pardon of sin, and victory over the world. Jesus be- 
came the one man who bore in himself the fullness of 
the godhead. 

Important concessions to Christianity seem to be 
caade; nevertheless subtle Pantheism underlies their 



436 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



statements. But one of their opinions subverts every- 
thing they grant to orthodoxy. Christ was not, ac- 
cording to their view, the Messiah in the sense fore- 
told by the prophets and preached by the apostles. 
We must judge him apart from all poetry, specu- 
lation, and human judgment. The Christ of the pres- 
ent church is the creation of theologians, not the 
character portrayed by the evangelists. Unfortu- 
nately for our correct view of him, Paul speculated 
entirely too much upon his nature and work. The 
resurrection of Christ never took place, because there 
was no necessity for it. It was a good thing for the 
apostles to believe that such an event took place, for it 
encouraged them. Christ never showed himself to any 
one after his death, and the belief that he did appear 
arose purely from the excited nerves, imaginative tem- 
perament, and strong desire of his followers to see him. 
His spirit did not die with his body, but entered upon 
another stage of existence. 

Jesus did not work miracles, for he had not the 
power. He was eminently a moral man, the very per- 
sonification of the truly religious character. Eeligion be- 
came flesh in him, and he was the exemplification of love. 
The salvation we find tlii'ough him is by virtue of his 
example and inculcation of moral truths. The spirit 
of Christ still exists, but it does not live in a purely 
personal relation, nor does it operate as a personal 
existence. His spirit and example are with us, but he 
is not here himself. The good man is favored vrith the 
influence imparted to humanity by Christ's exemplary 
life, but he is nowhere actually present in the world. 

God and his Miracles. No miracles, in the ortho- 
dox sense of the term, have ever occurred. The scien- 
tific examination of the Scriptures banishes them alto- 



VIEWS ON IMMOETAUTY. 



437 



gether. Neither are miracles possible, otherwise we 
should see them every day. They would be acts of 
arbitrary authority on God's part ; and if he performed 
them he would destroy the harmony and connection of 
natural laws. Christianity was not introduced by 
miracles. It was inaugurated, and even originated^ 
by underlying causes of a purely natural character. 
Miracle is only a creation of the imagination, and 
should be discarded as a human error. 

The personality of God is freely spoken of, but 
his self-consciousness, in the strictest sense, is not al- 
lowed. Hence God is really deprived by them of 
all plan, aim, love, and favor. He is a spiritual being, 
but he is not a spirit. He is spirit, yet not a real, 
thinking, self-conscious, willing spirit. He is not a 
personality or individuality. " A person," these men 
appear to say, " must have a place to stand upon, and 
surely we would not say this of God ? The fact is, we 
grossly misrepresent the great All-Father. We picture 
him in our sensuous forms, and almost imagine him to 
be like one of ourselves." 

Immortality. The Speculative Rationalists attach 
less importance to individual immortality than their 
predecessors conceded. We might infer this, however, 
from the Hegelian point of view adopted by the former. 
They profess adherence to Schleiermacher's dictum : 
" In the midst of the finite to be one with the infinite^ 
and to be eternal every moment." But they adhere to 
the doctrine of " eternal life," by which term they mean 
an existence commencing and terminating with faith. 
It is a life of such value that it should be called " eter- 
nal " life, although it ends with our last breath in this 
world. It consists in the attainment of the end of 
our existence and of conquest over sin. Thus, they 



438 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



reduce the eternal life of whicli the gospel speaks to 
a mere metliod and duration of stay in this world. 
This life, with them, exhausts life ; the kingdom of 
Ciod has not an eternal, but a present and temporal ex- 
istence ; there is, therefore, no new heaven and new 
earth. 

Sm. The fall of man did not take place. It is an 
absurd superstition. Since the world is but a limited 
and imperfect representation of God, sin came into it 
immediately upon its origin. We err when we look at 
sin apart from a correct conception of the world. Sin 
has its seat in the natural weakness of man, for he is a 
temporal being, and in process of necessary develop- 
ment from impure naturalness to reason and freedom. 
It is the condition in which man finds himself before 
arriving at an idea of what he is or will be. If it be 
asked, " Why is sin in the world ? " the rejoinder is 
made, " Why is not man, in the outset of his existence, 
what he is destined to be, and why must he stand in 
need of development ? " Sin, in the beginning, was 
natural imperfection, but it never becomes a work of 
the will until man is developed. It is the melancholy 
result of an awakened consciousness. But, after man 
is once aroused to self-consciousness and begins his 
actual, sinful life, he never becomes a lost sinner. 

Faith. The gospel is not a compendium of prin- 
ciples. Its only value consists in its description of the 
moral and religious character of Christ, and every one 
must derive from it such opinions as seem most plaus- 
ible and reasonable. But they err who excogitate from 
it those severe dogmas which express only dreams of 
the imagination and wishes of the religious spirit. 
Faith in the gospel is not a condition of salvation. For 
faith is the inner relation of the spiritual man to God, 



LATER CONDITIONS OF SWITZERLAND. 



439 



not the acceptance of fixed traditions. It is such a feel- 
ing, emotion, and relation as can exist independently 
of doctrine. Objective truth is not the measure of 
faith, and the salvation of man is not conditioned by 
his theoretical opinions. The human spirit in man is 
the agent of regeneration. Therefore man, and not God, 
is the author of human regeneration. Justification by 
faith is produced by seeking Grod's favor, but Christ 
has nothing at all to do with the matter. 

Among the destructive critics Eudolf Steck, of 
Berne, in 1888, attacked the genuineness of the four 
chief epistles of Paul, singling out Galatians as his 
special target. Edward Langhaus, also of Berne, was 
a leader in the liberalistic ranks from 1865 until his 
death, in 1891. C. von Orelli, of Basel, has been a con- 
servative leader in Old Testament studies, and Fred- 
erick Louis Godet, of Xeuchatel, from 1850 to 1900 
was one of the strongest champions of orthodoxy. 
Godet was a man of affairs, mingling among men, as 
well as a scholarly and prolific writer, whose books are 
sure of long-continued use and influence. His Intro- 
duction to the NeiD Testament and his commentaries 
have given him a permanent place of honor and in- 
fluence among the Swiss worthies. French Switzerland 
still suffers from the atheistic importations from France, 
though there are signs in Lausanne and elsewhere of an 
increasing element desirous of Christian morality both 
in public affairs and in private life. Protestantism is 
growing in a wise liberality and in a genuine evangelism. 
The land of Zwingli's birth and of Calvin's adoption 
bids fair to become a still mightier stronghold of a 
pure Christianity. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



El^GLAND : THE SOIL PREPARED FOR THE INTRODUCTION 
OF RATIONALISM. 

The religious lesson taught by the condition of 
England duiing the eighteenth century is this : The 
inevitable moral prostration to ^Yhich skepticism re- 
duces a nation, and the utter incapacity of literature 
to afford relief. English Deism had advantages not 
possessed by the Rationalism of Germany. Some of its 
champions were men of great political influence; and 
in no case was there a parallel to the abandoned 
Bahrdt. The Deists were steady in the pursuit of their 
game, for when they struck a path they never per- 
mitted themselves to be deflected. But the Ration- 
alists were ever turning into some by-road and weak- 
ening their energies by traversing many a fruitless 
mile. 

The literature of England, during the eighteenth 
century, presents a picture of literary ostentation. The 
Deists had toiled to build up a system of natural re- 
lisrion which would not onlv be a monument to their 
genius, but serve as an impassable barrier to all such 
claims as were urged by the zealous and loud-spoken 
Puiitans. But early Deism lacked an indispensable 
element of strength, — the power of adapting itself to 
the people. Its best priests could not leave the tripod, 



INFLUENCE OF LITERATTJEE. 



441 



tliougli many of the oracular responses were heard some 
distance from the temple-doors. In time, there arose a 
group of essayists and poets, who, with a similar coterie 
of novelists, dictated religion, morals, politics, and lit- 
erature to the country. Their influence was so great 
that, when they flattered the heads of government, the 
]atter were equally assiduous in playing the Maecenas 
to them. 

The writers of the eighteenth century, viewed in a 
literary sense alone, have never had their superiors in 
English literature. The works of Addison, Pope, Gray, 
Thomson, Goldsmith, and Johnson will continue to be 
classics wherever the English language is spoken. The 
British metropolis was pervaded with the atmosphere 
of Parnassus. It was a time when literature was the 
El Dorado of youth and old age. Those were the days 
when clubs convened statedly in the neighborhood of 
the Strand, and when, every night, the attics of Grub 
street poured out their throngs of quill-heroes, who 
were welcomed into the parlors of the nobility as cor- 
dially as to their own club-houses. The last new work 
engaged universal attention. Society was filled with 
rumors of books commenced, half finished, plagiarized, 
successful, or defunct. Literary respectability was the 
Open Sesame " to social rank. There has never been 
a season when cultivated society was more imbued with 
the mania of book- writing and criticism than existed in 
England during at least three-quarters of the eighteenth 
century. 

While many of the publications of that time were 
prompted by Deism, French society and literature were 
contributing an equal share toward poisoning the Eng- 
lish mind. France and England were so intimately re- 
lated to each other that the two languages were dili- 



442 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



gently studied in botli countries. If the English adven- r 
turer in letters had not spent a few months in Paris, and 
could not read Corneille almost as readily as Spenser or 
Shakspeare, he was cashiered by certain Gallicists west 
of the Channel as a sorry aspirant to their coveted 
favor.^ The rise of the French spirit in England was 
mainly due to Bolingbroke, who was as much at home 
in Paris as in London. He had numerous friends and 
admirers in the former metropolis, and at two different 
times made it his residence. Freely imbibing the skep- 
tical opinions of the court of Louis XIV., he dealt 
them out unsparingly to his English readers. He 
was one of the most accomj^lished wits who fre- 
quented the salon of Madame de Croissy, and he de- 
veloped his skeptical system through the medium of 
the French language, in a series of letters to M. de 
Pouilly.2 

Bolingbroke accused the greatest divines and phi- 
losophers of leading a great part of mankind into inex- 
tricable labyrinths of reasoning and speculation. Nat- 
ural theology and religion, he held, had become corrupt. 
In view of these results of mental infirmities, he applied 
himself to correct all errors. He proposed " to distin- 
guish genuine and pure theism from the profane mix- 
tui^es of human imagination ; and to go to the root of 
that error which encourages our curiosity, sustains our 
pride, fortifies our prejudices, and gives pretense to de- 
lusion ; to discover the true nature of human knowl- 
edge, how far it extends, how far it is real, and where 
and how it begins to be fantastical ; that, the gaudy 
visions of error being dispelled, men may be accustomed 

* For an excellent view of the relation of France and England in the 
eighteenth century, see Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 Dec, 1861. 
Schlosser, History of the EigMeenth Century^ vol, i, p. 98. 



LNFLUENCE OF THE ENGLISH JS^OBILITY. 443 

to tlie simplicity of trutli." ^ Tlie Scriptures, according 
to Bolingbroke, are unworthy of our credence. They 
degrade the Deity to mean and unwoii^hy offices and 
employments.^ The New Testament consists of two 
distinct gospels ; one by Christ, the other by St. PauL 
The doctrine of future rewards and punishments is ab- 
surd, and contrary to the divine attributes.^ Chris- 
tianity has been of no advantage to mankind. " The 
world hath not been effectually reformed, nor any one 
nation in it, by the promulgation of the gospel, even 
where Christianity flourished most."* There is a 
supreme All-Perfect Being, but he does not concern 
himself with human affairs so far as individuals are 
concerned. The soul is not distinct from the body, and 
both terminate at death. The law of nature, being 
sufficient for the purposes of our being, is all that God 
has proclaimed for our guidance.^ 

There were other members of the English nobil- 
ity who used their influence for the introduction 
of French infidelity, literatui^e, morals, and fashions. 
Some did not equal Bolingbroke in repudiating the 
spirit of the gospel, but nearly all were willing students 
at the feet of their pretentious Gallic instructors. The 
house of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, at Wickenham, 
was the centre whither gravitated that large class of 
acknowledged chiefs in letters represented by Steele, 
Pope, and the Walpoles. They thought, spoke, and 
dressed according to the French standard, which, in 
respect to religion and morals, was never lower than at 
that very time. The attempt to rear a Paris on English 

* Worlc9^ vol. iii, p. 328. London Edition of 1754. 5 vols., quarto. 
' Ibid. p. 304. » Ibid. vol. v, p. 356. * Ibid. p. 258. 

^ Leland, View of Deistical Writers of England, pp. 307-308. London 
Edition of 1887, with Appendix and Introduction, by Brown and Edmonds. 



444 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



soil was a complete success. The young were deligtted 
with the result; the aged had been too ill-taught in 
early life to raise the voice of remonstrance. With the 
exception of the Puritan opposition, the gratification was 
universal ; and that took place in religion and literature 
which, had it occurred in warfare, would have "kindled 
a flame of national indignation in every breast : Eng- 
land fell powerless, contented, and doomed into the 
arms of France. 

The attacks of Hume and Gibbon on the divine 
origin of Christianity take rank with the mischievous 
influences imparted by the elder school of Deists, and 
by French taste and immorality. 

Hume was a philosopher who drew his inspiration 
dii-ectly from his own times. Attaching himself to the 
Encyclopaedists, he played the wit in the salons of Paris, 
He became fraternally intimate with Rousseau, and 
brought that social dreamer back with him to England 
as a mark of high appreciation of his talents. He was 
a metaphysician by nature, but he erred in speculat- 
ing with theology. That was the mistake of his life. 
He fell into Bolingbroke's error of excessive egotism. 
Standing before the superstructure of theology, he care- 
fully surveyed every part of it, and deemed no theme 
too lofty for his reasonings, and no mystery beyond 
the reach of his illuminating torch. He lamented the 
absence of progress in the understanding of that evi- 
dence which assures us of any real existence and matter 
of fact. But this difficulty did not impede him from an 
attempted solution. He thought himself performing a 
great service when he addressed himself to the " de- 
struction of that implicit faith and credulity which is 
the bane of all reasoning and free inquiry." ^ He re- 

* Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding^ p. 49. Lon- 
don Edition, 1Y50. 



HUME ON MIRACLES. 



445 



fused to acknowledge a Supreme Being, in tlie follow- 
ing words : " While we argue from tlie course of na- 
ture, and infer a particular intelligent cause, wliicli at 
first bestowed and still preserves order in tlie universe, 
we embrace a principle whicli is botli uncertain and 
useless, because tlie subject lies entirely beyond the 
reacb of human experience." ^ 

The miraculous evidences of Christianity were also 
opposed by Hume. His Essay on Miracles (1747) 
consists of two parts; the former of which is an attempt 
to prove that no evidence would be a sufficient ground 
for believing the truth and existence of miracles. Expe- 
rience is our only guide in reasoning on matters of fact; 
but even this guide is far from infallible, and liable at 
any moment to lead us into errors. In judging how far 
a testimony is to be depended upon, we must balance the 
opposite circumstances, which may create any doubt or 
uncertainty. The evidence from testimony may be de- 
stroyed either by the contrariety and opposition of the 
testimony, or by the consideration of the nature of the 
facts themselves. When the facts partake of the mar- 
velous there are two opposite experiences with regard to 
them, and that which is most credible is to be accept- 
ed. Now the uniform experience of men is against 
miracles. We should not, therefore, believe any tes- 
timony concerning a miracle, unless the falsehood of 
that testimony should be more miraculous than the 
miracle it is designed to establish. Besides, as we 
cannot know the attributes or actions of God otherwise 
than by our experience of them, we cannot be sure that 
he can effect miracles ; for they are contrary to our own 
experience and the course of nature. Therefore, it is 
impossible to prove miracles by any evidence. 

^Philosophical Essays, p. 224. 



446 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



The second part of the JEssay on Miracles is in- 
tended to show that, supposing a miracle capable of 
being proved by sufficient testimony, no miraculous 
event in history has ever been established on such 
evidence. The witnesses of a miracle should be of 
such imquestionable good sense, education, and learn- 
ing, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves.. 
They should also be of such undoubted integrity as to 
place them beyond all suspicion of design to deceive 
others. Then they should be of such credit and repu- 
tation in the eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to 
lose if detected in any falsehood. Last of all, the facts 
attested by the witnesses should be performed in such 
a public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the 
world, as to render detection unavoidable.^ 

Now, according to Hume, these requisitions are not 
met in the supposed witnesses of the miracles of Christ. 
Consequently, we are no more obliged to believe their 
accounts than the reports of miracles alleged to have 
been wrought at the tomb of the Abbe de Paris. AU. 
must be rejected together. 

Hume's History of England met with a cold recep- 
tion on its first appearance. But he lived to see the 
day when, as he egotistically said, " it became circu- 
lated like the newspapers." Yet he wrote that work 
not as an end, but as a means. Historical writing was 
then the medium in which it was common to couch 
theology or philosophy. Hume had a profound con- 
tempt for everything Puritanic on the one hand, and 
hierarchical and traditional on the other. He would 
make every trace disappear beneath his scathing pen. 
He ignored the development of religious life in Eng- 
land, and would subject all events which indicated a 

^ Leland, View of Deistical Writers^ pp. 230-250. 



gibbon's EOMAIf EmiEE. 



44t 



deep Ctiristiaii piety and purpose, to his cold system 
of philosophy. Writing with an inflexible adherence 
to his theological opinions, he cast over historical events 
the drapery of his own interpretation. The question 
with him was not, " What is the history of England 
during the period of which I treat V but " Does not 
the history of England sustain my philosophy ? " And 
his own answer was, " Yes ; I record facts, and draw 
my own conclusions. Is not that a good philosophy ! " 

Gibbon was even more of a Frenchman than Hume. 
Sundering his relation to Oxford in his seventeenth 
year, he embarked upon a course of living and thinking 
which, whatever advantage it might afford to his purse, 
was not likely to aid his faith. By a sudden caprice he 
became a Roman Catholic, and afterward as uncere- 
moniously denied his adopted creed. In due time he 
found himself in Paris publishing a book in the French 
language. He there fell in with the fashionable in- 
fidelity, and so far yielded to the flattery of Helvetius 
and all the frequenters of Holbach's house that he 
jested at Christianity and assailed its divine character. 

While residing at Lausanne, Switzerland, he culti- 
vated the florid French st}de of composition, and ap- 
plied it in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 
That work has been severely censured, but despite its 
defects it is one of the permanent master-pieces of Eng- 
lish literature. In the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters 
the author gives his opinion of Christianity. He at- 
tributes the progress of the Christian religion to the 
zeal of the Jews, to the doctrine of the immortality of 
the soul as stated by philosophers, to the miraculous 
powers claimed by the primitive church, to the virtues 
of the first Christians, and to the activity of the Chris- 
tians in the government of the church. He attributed 



448 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



to outward agencies what could have been effected only 
by inward forces. But lie did not assume the philoso- 
pher's cap, for, not being metaphysical by nature, he 
never did violence to his own constitution. He has left 
much less on record against Christianity than Hume, 
but they must be ranked together as the last of the 
family of English Deists. 

Gibbon made loud professions of independence and 
of an earnest desire for the enlargement of popular 
liberty. But he was less attached to principle than to 
expediency. At the very time the first volume of his 
history appeared, in which he pays lofty tributes to 
human freedom, he came into Parliament as an avowed 
abettor of the ministry of George III., in their attempts 
to subjugate the American colonies. He was doubtless 
well paid for his votes ; for he was at the same time a 
member of the Board of Trade, a nominal office with a 
large salary.^ A verse, attributed to Fox, expresses 
the popular sentiment concerning him : 

" King George in a fright, 

Lest Gibbon should write , 

The story of England's disgrace, j 

Thought no way so sure, I 

^ His pen to secure, j 

i As to give the historian a place." 1 

I 

In addition to these evidences of religious decay we 
may add the most unwelcome of all : the moral prostra- 
tion of the English Church. Instead of being "a city 
set upon a hill," she was in the valley of humiliation ; 
and few were the faithful watchmen upon her walls. 
The period commencing with the Restoration, and con- 
tinuing down to the time of which we speak, was one 

* Schlosser, History of the Eighteenth Gentmy^ vol. ii, p. 85-86. 



BISHOP BUEKET's statement. 



449 



of ministerial and laic degeneracy. Bishop Burnet, 
writing of his own generation, said, " I am now in tlie 
seventieth year of my age, and as I cannot speak long 
in the world, in any sort, I cannot hope for a more 
solemn occasion than this of speaking with all due free- 
dom, both to the present and to the succeeding ages. 
Therefore I lay hold on it to give a free vent to those 
sad thoughts that lie on my mind both day and night, 
and are the subject of many secret mournings. I can- 
not look on without the deepest concern, when I see the 
imminent ruin hanging over this church, and, by con- 
sequence, over the whole Reformation. The outward 
state of things is black enough, God knows, but that 
which heightens my fears rises chiefly from the inward 
state into which we are unhappily fallen. . . . Our 
ember-weeks are the burden and grief of my life. The 
much greater part of those who come to be ordained 
are ignorant to a degree not to be apprehended by 
those who are not obliged to know it. The easiest part 
of knowledge is that to which they are the greatest 
strangers. Those who have read some few books, yet 
never seem to have read the Scriptures. Many cannot 
give even a tolerable account of the Catechism itself, 
how short and plain soever. This does often tear my 
heart. The case is not much better in many who, having 
got into orders, come for institution, and cannot make it 
appear that they have read the Scriptures, or any one 
good book since they were ordained ; so that the small 
measure of knowledge upon which they get into holy 
orders, not being improved, is in a way to be quite lost ; 
and they think it a great hardship if told they must 
know the Scriptures and the body of divinity better be- 
fore they can be trusted with the care of souls." ^ 

* Pastoral Care. 



450 



HISTOKY OF KATIONALISM. 



Archbishop Seeker, who wrote at a later period, 
testifies to the same state of religious petrification : " In 
this we cannot be mistaken, that an open and professed 
disregard is become, through a variety of unhappy 
causes, the distinguishing character of the present age ; 
that this evil is grown to a great height in the metrop- 
olis of the nation ; is daily spreading through every 
part of it ; and, bad in itself as any can be, must of ne- 
cessity bring in others after it. Indeed it hath already 
brought in such dissoluteness and contempt of princi- 
ple in the higher part of the world, and such profligate 
intemperance, and fearlessness of committing crimes, in 
the lower, as must, if this impiety stop not, become ab- 
solutely fatal. And God knows, far from stopping, it 
receives, through the ill designs of some persons, and 
the inconsiderateness of others, a continual increase. 
Christianity is now ridiculed and railed at, with very 
little reserve ; and the teachers of it, without any at 
all."^ 

The Church had not the moral power or purity to 
assert her own authority. She had lost the respect of 
the world because she had no respect for herself. She 
was therefore enervated at a time when all her power 
was needed to resist the skeptical and immoral tenden- 
cies of the day. But a new religious power, from an unex- 
pected source, began to influence the English mini We 
refer to the movement inaugurated by the Wesleys and 
Whitefield, who were fellow-students in Oxford Univer- 
sity. They were appalled at the dissoluteness of the 
students, the frigid preaching of the day, and the uni- 
versal religious destitution of the nation. These themes 
burdened the hearts of the "Holy Club" at Oxford 
from day to day, and sent them from their cloisters to 

* WorJcs^ vol. V, p. 306. 



THE WESLEYAN MOVEMENT. 



451 



visit prisons, preacli in surrounding towns, and impart 
religious truth wherever a willing recipient could be 
found. No sooner had John Wesley returned from his 
missionary voyage to Georgia than there were unmis- 
takable evidences of the adaptation of the new preach- 
ing to the wants of the people. The masses, long 
affected by a deplorable indifference to religious 
truths and pious living, heard the earnest preaching 
of the Methodists with profound attention and in 
«uch large numbers that no impartial observer could 
•doubt the peculiar fitness of Methodism to the existing 
state of society, morals, literature, and philosophy. As 
a result, the number of converts multiplied. The Es- 
tablished Church was aroused to activity. Dissenters 
began to hope for the return of the good days of Bun- 
yan and Baxter and Howe. 

Isaac Taylor says of the new influence, that "it 
preserved from extinction and reanimated the lan- 
guishing nonconformity of the last century, which just 
at the time of the Methodist revival was rapidly in 
course to be found nowhere but in books." But the 
Wesleyan movement made little impression on the 
literary cii^cles to whom Bolingbroke, Hume, and Gib- 
bon had communicated their gospel of nature. The 
poets continued to sing, the essayists to write, and 
the philosophers to speculate, in a world peculiarly 
their own. They shut themselves quite in from the 
itinerant " helpers " of Wesley. The large class of Eng- 
lish minds which stood aloof from all ecclesiastical 
organizations, and failed to see any higher cause of 
the revival than mere enthusiasm, were the persons 
whom those wiiters still influenced. But it was plain 
to both the masters and their disciples that their princi- 
ples were in process of transition. They were there- 



452 



HISTOKY OF EATIO^S'ALISM. 



fore ready for the reception of whatever plausible type 
of skepticism iniglit present itself for their accept- 
ance. 

History is the illustration of cause and effect. The 
fountain springs up in one period, and generations often 
pass before it finds its natural outlet. The issue of the 
final efforts of English Deism, of the impure French 
taste, and of the works of the grosser class of literary 
men of the eighteenth century, was now manifested in 
that spirit which welcomed the IJssays and Reviews, 
and the criticism of Colenso. It is not true that these 
and similar publications created a Rationalistic taste 
in Great Britain. The taste was already in existence, 
and had been strusr^linor for satisfaction ever since the 
closing decades of the eighteenth century. 



CHAPTER XX. 



ENGLAND CONTINUED : PHILOSOPHICAL AND LITERARY RA- 
TIONALISM.— COLERIDGE AND OARLYLE. 

All history betrays the operation of a compensating 
principle. The payment may be slow, but there is sel- 
dom total repudiation. An influence which departs 
from a country and sets in upon its neighbor, trans- 
forming thought, giving new shades to social life, and 
instilling foreign principles into politics, is sure, in 
course of time, to return from its wanderings, bearing 
with it other forces with which to react upon the land 
whence it originated. Thought, like the tidal wave, 
visits all latitudes with its ebb and flow. 

The Anglican theology of the nineteenth century is 
an illustration of intellectual re-payment. Two centuries 
before Englaud gave Deism to Germany, and the latter 
country now paid back the debt with compound in- 
terest. After the Ee volution of 1789, and the brilliant 
ascendency of Napoleon Bonaparte, the French spirit 
rapidly lost its hold upon the English mind. But there 
immediately arose a disposition to consult German the- 
ology and philosophy. English students frequented 
the German universities, and the works of the leading 
thinkers of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Halle, were on sale 
in the book-stores of London. The intimate relations 
of the royal family of England to Germany, together 



454 



HISTORY OF EATIOIS^ALISM. 



with the alliance between the German States and Great 
Britain for the arrest of French arms, increased the 
tendency until it assumed importance and power. The 
fruit was first visible in the application of German Ra- 
tionalism and philosophy to English theology. When 
Coleridge came from the Fatherland with a new system 
of opinions, he felt as proud of his good fortune as 
Columbus did on laying a continent at his sovereign's 
feet. Ever since that profound thinker assumed a fiied 
position, a reaction against orthodoxy has been in 
progress in tlie Established Church. There were rea- 
sons why the slow but effectual introduction of Ger- 
man Rationalism has taken place imperceptibly. 

The war which had agitated England, with the rest 
of Euru[)e, came to a close in 1815. Immediately after- 
ward domestic politics needed adjustment. "The dis- 
abilities were swept away," says a writer, " the House of 
Commons was reconstituted, the municipalities were 
reformed, slavery was abolished." ^ In due time the na- 
tion became adjusted to peace; the popular mind lost 
its nervousness; the universities returned to their sober 
thinking; and the Church took a careful survey to ascer- 
tain what had been lost in the recent conflict, what 
gained, and what new fields lay ready for her enterprise. 
But very soon fresh political combinations attracted the 
attention of all classes. The revolutionary changes and 
counter-changes in France were watched with eager at- 
tention lest Waterloo might be avenged in some unex- 
pected manner. At home, church parties were reviv- 
ing the old antagonisms described by the pen of Ma- 
caulay. The popular mind was thus continually 
directed toward some exciting theme. England had 
not a day of thoughtful leisure for more than a half 

^ National Mevleic, Oct., 1856. 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 



455 



century, when she could come to a judicious conclusion 
concerning that class of her thinkers who, though they 
made theology their profession, were so intensely inde- 
pendent as to attach themselves to no creed or ecclesi- 
astical organization. But they had been thinking all 
the time, and the outgrowth of their thought was now 
visible. 

English Rationalism consists of three departments : 
Philosophical, Literary, and Critical E-ationalism. When- 
ever infidelity has arisen, whether within or without 
the Church, it has usually developed these forms. Phi- 
losophy has furnished undevout reason with a fund of 
speculative objections to revelation ; literature has daz- 
zled and bewildered the young and all lovers of ro- 
mance ; and criticism has seized the deductions of 
science, language, and ethnology, and by their com- 
bined aid aimed at the overthrow of the historical and 
inspired basis of faith. Each of these three agents is in 
constant danger of arrogance and error. The first, by 
a single false assumption, may lose its way ; the second, 
by making too free use of the imagination, can easily 
forget when it is dealing with faith and facts ; and the 
third, by one act of over-reaching, is liable to become 
puerile, fanciful, and unreliable. The philosopher, the 
litterateur J and the exegete need to be less observant of 
the surrounding world than of the purity of their own 
inner life and the teachings of the Holy Spirit. 

Philosophical Pationalism in England commenced 
with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A comprehensive view 
of that metaphysician produces a painful impression. 
Though gifted with capacity for any sphere of thought, 
he did not excel in any one so far as to enable us to 
assign him a fixed place in literature. He is known as 
poet, theologian, and philosopher. But his own desire 



456 



HISTORY OF BATIONALISM. 



was that posterity miglit regard Lim as a theologian. 
In addition to this indeterminateness of position, which 
always seriously detracts from a great name, Coleridge 
j^resents the unfortunate example of a man who, instead 
of laborino; with settled convictions, and achievino^ suc- 
cess by vii'tue of their operation, seems to have only 
striven after them. His indefinite status was the result 
of that theological difficulty which proved his greatest 
misfortune. His sentiments never partook of an evan- 
gelical character until the latter part of his life. His 
habits of thought had become confirmed, and it was 
quite too late to counteract the influence of many views 
previously expressed. 

So far as we are able to collect the opinions of Cole- 
ridge by fragments from his writings, we discover two 
elements, which, coming from totally different sources, 
and originating in different ages, harmonized in his 
mind and constituted the mass of his speculations. One 
was Grecian, taking its rise in Plato and afterward 
becoming assimilated to Christianity at Alexandria. 
The other was German, derived directly from Kant, and 
undergoing no improvement by its processes of trans- 
formation at the hands of that philosopher's successors. 
" From the Greek," says Dr. Shedd, " he derived the 
doctrine of Ideas, and fully sympathized with his 
warmly-glowing and poetic utterance of philosophic 
truths. From the German he derived the more strictly 
scientific part of his system — the fundamental distinc- 
tions between the Understanding and the Eeason (with 
the sub-distinction of the latter into Speculative and 
Practical), and between Nature and Spirit. With him 
also he sympathized in that deep conviction of the ab- 
solute nature and validity of the great ideas of God, 
Freedom, and Immortality ; of the binding obligation. 



STRUGGLES OF COLERIDGE. 457 

' of conscience ; and generally of the supremacy of the 
Moral and Practical over the purely Speculative. In- 
|| deed, any one who goes to the study of Kant, after 
I having made himself acquainted with the writings of 
! Coleridge, will be impressed by the spontaneous and 
vital concurrence of the latter with the former— the 
heartiness and entireness with whicli the Englishman 
enters into the method and system of this, in many 
respects, greatest philosoplier of the modern world." ^ 

The Platonic element in the speculations of Cole- 
ridge is of earlier date than tlie German. It was his 
reliance until introduced to the captivating opinions of 
the philosopher of Konigsberg. But it never wholly 
left him, — it was the enchantment of liis life. 

He had severe struggles. His conquest of the habit 
of opium-eating, contracted to soothe physical suffering, 
is an index of the persistent purpose of the man. At 
first an ardent Unitarian, lie was once about to assume 
charge of a congregation at Shrewsbury. But he finally 
declined the offer, by saying that, " Active zeal for 
Unitarian Christianity, not indolence or indifference, 
has been the motive of my declining a local and solid 
settlement as preacher of it." ^ 

The media through which he passed in search of 
light were numerous. He seems to have gone to 
Germany under the impression that he would there 
find what he had fruitlessly sought in England. No 
one will deny that the philosophy of Kant was better 
than the English empirical system of the eighteenth 
century, which was the best metaphysical pabulum he 

* Introductory Essay to Coleridge's Works. Yol, i, pp. 21-22. Har- 
per's edition. 

' Letter dated Shrewsbury, Jan. 19, 1798, to Mr. Isaac Wood, High 
St., Shrewsbury. 



458 



HISTORY OF RATI0T^ALIS3I. 



had received at home. He applied himself to the assid- 
uous study of Kant's disciples, but the master satisfied 
him best. Nevertheless, Coleridge was not mentally 
adapted to the Kantian system. He had a psychical 
affinity for Schelling. He loved him as a brother. He 
was charmed with his vivid imagination, warm admira- 
tion of all natural forms, and ardent, impulsive temper- 
ament. Schelling s philosophy was Spinozism in poetry, 
and there can be no question of Coleiidge's former 
adoption of some parts of the Hollander's naturalism. 
But his tenacity for them, as well as his subsequent 
affiliation with Schelling, was short-lived. When he 
awoke to the unmistakable stratum of Pantheism under- 
lying Schelling's system, he hastily forsook it, and his 
diatribes indignantly hurled against one whom he had 
so enthusiastically admired are the more notable be- 
cause of his former intense sympathy. From Schelling 
he returned once more to Kant as the thinker who had 
more closely approximated the truth. His mind must 
have undergone a total revolution when he could write 
such words as these : " Spite of all the superior airs of 
the Natur-Philosojphie^ I confess that in the perusal of 
Kant I breathe the air of good sense and logical under 
standing with the light of reason shining in it and 
through it ; while in the Physics of Schelling I am 
amused vrith happy conjectures, and in his Theology 
I am bewildered by positions which, in their first sense, 
are transcendental {iiberfliegeruT)^ and in their literal 
sense scandalous." ^ 

Coleridge became firmly settled in theistic faith. 
Occupying that as his final position, he is destined to 
wield a great salutary power over English thought. 
Dr. Shedd, in estimating the probable future influence j 

^Biographia Literaria. Appendix III., p. 709. J 



THEISTIC FAITH OF COLEEIDGE. 



459 



of his theistic system, says : " Now as tlie defender and 
interpreter of this decidedly and profoundly tlieistic 
system of pliilosopliy, we regard the works of Coleridge 
as of great and growing worth, in the present state of 
the educated and thinking world. It is not to be dis- 
guised that Pantheism is the most formidable opponent 
which truth has to encounter in the cultivated and 
reiiecting classes. We do not here allude to the formal 
reception and logical defense of the system, so much as 
to that pantheistic way of thinking, which is uncon- 
sciously stealing into the lighter and more imaginative 
species of modern literature, and from them is passing 
over into the principles and opinions of men at large. 
This popularized Naturalism — this Naturalism of polite 
literature and of literary society — is seen in the lack of 
that depth and strength of tone, and that heartiness 
and robustness of temper, which characterize a mind 
into which the personality of God, and the responsibility 
of man cut sharply, and which does not cowardly 
shrink from a severe and salutary moral consciousness. 
. . . The intensely theistic character of the philosophy 
of Coleridge is rooted and grounded in the Personal 
and the Spiiitual, and not in the least in the Imper- 
sonal and the Natural. Drawing in the outset, as we 
have remarked above, a distinct and broad line between 
these two realms, it keeps them apart from each other, 
by affirming a difference in essence, and steadfastly re- 
sists any and every attempt to amalgamate them into 
one sole substance. The doctrine of creation, and not 
of emanation or of modification, is the doctrine by which 
it constructs its theory of the Universe, and the doc- 
trine of responsible self-determination, and not of irre- 
sponsible natural development, is the doctrine by which 
it constructs its systems of Philosophy and Religion." ^ 

^ Introductory Essay to Coleridge's WorTcs^ vol. i pp. 35-36. 



460 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



The Platonic portion of the- views of Coleridge is 
more apparent in his theology than in his philosophy. 
In his Confession of Faith, witten November 3, 1816, 
he avows his adherence to some of the prime doctrines 
of revealed truth. He declares his free agency ; defines 
God to be a Being in whom supreme reason and a most 
holy will are one with infinite power ; acknowledges 
man's fallen nature, that he is " born a child of wrath ; " 
and holds Christ Jesus to be the Word which was with 
God from all eternity, assumed human nature to redeem 
man, and by his merits secured for us the descent of the 
Holy Spirit and the impartation of his free grace. In 
the Preface to the Aids to Reflection he thus states his 
object in wi'iting that work : " To exhibit a full and 
consistent scheme of the Christian Dispensation, and 
more largely of all the peculiar doctrines of the Chris- 
tian faith ; and to answer all the objections to the same, 
which do not originate in a corrupt will rather than an 
erring judgment ; and to do this in a manner intelli- 
gible for all who, possessing the ordinary advantages 
of education, do in good earnest desire to form their 
religious creed in the light of their own convictions, and 
to have a reason for the faith which they profess. 
There are indeed mysteries, in evidence of which no 
reasons can be brought. But it has been my endeavor 
to show that the true solution of the problem is, that 
these mysteries are reason, reason in its highest form of 
self-affirmation." ^ 

The distinctions and definitions of Coleridge occa- 
sion the most serious difficulty in the study of his opin- 
ions. His mode of statement more frequently than his 
conception subjects him to the charge of Eationalism. 
His life-long error of mistaking theology for meta. 

' Works^ vol. i, p. 115. 



OPmiONS OF COLERIDQE. 



461 



physics resulted in Ms application of philosophical ter- 
minology to theological questions ; but, making every 
reasonable allowance, we cannot doubt that he had 
defective views of some of the essential truths of Chris- 
tianity. He clothes reason with authority to determine 
what is inspiration, by saying that there can be no reve- 
lation " ah extrar Therefore, every man should decide 
for himself the character of the Scriptures. The power 
which Coleridge thus places in the hand of man is 
traceable to his distinction between reason and under- 
standing. He makes the latter the logical, and the 
former the intuitive faculty. Even beasts possess un- 
derstanding, but reason, the gift of God to no less crea- 
ture than man, performs the functions of judgment on 
fiupersensual matters. " Reason," says he, " is the 
power of universal and necessary convictions, the source 
and substance of truths above sense, and having their 
evidence in themselves." ^ This admission to Rational- 
ism has been eagerly seized by the Coleridgean school, 
and elaborated in some of their writings. 

Sin, according to Coleridge, is not *guilt in the 
orthodox sense. When Adam fell he merely turned 
his back upon the sun ; dwelt in the shadow ; had 
God's displeasure; was stripped of his supernatural 
endowments ; and inherited the evils of a sickly body, 
and a passionate, ignorant, and uninstructed soul. His 
sin left him to his nature, his posterity is heir to his 
misfortunes, and what is every man's evil becomes all 
men's greater evil. Each one has evil enough, and it is 
hard for a man to live up to the rule of his own reason 
and conscience.^ Redemption is not salvation from the 
curse of a broken law, and Christ did not pay a debt 

^ Worlcs^ vol. i, p. 241. The full argument is contained on pp. 341-253. 
^Ibid. pp. 269-271. 
31 



462 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



for man, because tlie payer must have incurred the debt 
himself/ But the fruit of his death is the reconciliation 
of man to God. Man will have a future life, but it was 
not the specific object of the Christian dispensation to 
satisfy his understanding that he will live hereafter ; 
neither is the belief of a future state or the rationality 
of its belief the exclusive attribute of the Christian 
religion, but a fundamental article of all religion.^ 

All attempts to determine the exact theological 
position of Coleridge from his own definitions are un- 
satisfactory. We must derive his real convictions from 
the spirit and not from the letter of his works. He 
was devout and reverent, never prosecuting his investi- 
gations from a mere love of speculation, but as a sincere 
inquirer after truth. But his statements have had their 
natural result in producing a large and vigorous school 
of thinkers. Never bracing himself to write a philo- 
sophical or theological system, but merely stating his 
views in aphoristic form — as in the Aids to Reflection 
— he scattered his thoughts as a careless sower, and left 
them to germinate in the public mind. But many of 
his opinions have been perverted, and speculations have 
been based upon them by numerous admirers who, 
proudly claiming him for authority, thrust upon the 
world those sentiments which bear less the impress of 
the master than the counterfeit of the weaker disciple. 

A large cluster of important and familiar names ap- 
pears in testimony of the deep and immediate impres- 
sion produced by the opinions of Coleridge. Julius 
Charles Hare, not the least worthy of the number, 
was one of the prominent agents in communicating to 
the English people the principles of that thinker, who 

^ Works, vol. i, p. 308. 
2 Ibid. p. 325. 



JULIUS CHARLES HARE. 



463 



was not superior to him in moral earnestness and pro- 
found reverence. When lecturing as Fellow of Trinity 
College, Cambridge, Hai-e was attentively heard by 
John Sterling, Maurice, and Trench. He drank deeply 
of the spirit of Coleridge, of whom he was ever proud 
to call himself a " pupil," and who, in connection with 
Wordsworth, was the instrumentality by which he 
and others " were preserved from the noxious taint 
of Byron." ^ 

From whatever side we view Hare's life, it is full 
of interest. When very young he traveled on the 
Continent, and became delighted with the literature of 
Germany. He informs us that, " in 1811 he saw the 
mark of Luther's inkstand on the walls of the Castle 
of Wartburg, and there first learned to throw inkstands 
at the devil." His view of sacrifice was very superfi- 
cial, and similar to that of Maurice. The Jewish offer- 
ings were typical "of the slaying and offering up of the 
carnal nature to God. . . . The lesson of the 
cross is to draw nigh to God, not by this work or that 
work, not by the sacrifice of this thing or that, but by 
the entire sacrifice and resignation of their whole being 
to the will of God." ^ Christ did not perform his im- 
portant mission so much by his death as by his entire 
life, and his sufferings were only the completion of his 
task. "His great work was to be completed and made 
perfect, as every truly great work must be, by suffering. 
For no work can be really great unless it be against 
the course of the world. ... It was by losing his 
own life in every possible way — by the agony in the 
garden ; by the flight and denial of those whom he had 
chosen out of the world to be his companions and 

' Mission of the Comforter. Kote Sa. 

' Sermons on the Lcm of Self- Sacrifice^ and the Unity of the ChurcK 



464 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



friends; by the mockery and cruelty of those whom 
his goodness and purity rendered more bitter against 
him ; by the frantic and murderous cries of the people, 
whom he had loaded with every earthly benefit, and 
whom he desired to crown with eternal blessiDgs ; and 
by the closing sufferings on the cross — ^that Jesus was 
to gain his own life, and the everlasting life of all who 
w^ill believe in him. All this, then, the whole work of 
the redemption of mankind, does our Lord in the text 
declare to be finished." ^ 

Hare declares the necessity of faith to Christian 
life, but he renders it more passive than active by say- 
ing that it is a receptive moral endowment capable of 
large development. Happy is the man who becomes in- 
ured to the exalted " habit of faith." Sin is more a 
matter of regret than of responsibility ; inspiration is a 
doctrine we should not slight, but the language of the 
Scriptures must not be regarded too tenaciously ; due al- 
lowance ought to be made for all verbal inaccuracies and 
discrepancies ; mii-acles are an adjunct to Christian evi- 
dence, but their importance is greatly exaggerated, for 
they are a beautiful frieze, not one of the great pillars 
in the temple of our faith. 

Notwithstanding these evidences of Hare's digres- 
sion from orthodoxy, we cannot forget that consecration 
and purity of heart revealed in some of his sermons, 
and especially in the glowing pages of the Mission of 
the Comforter, His ministerial life was an example of 
untiring devotion, and we know not which to admire 
the more, his labor of love in the rustic parish of Hui-st- 
monceaux, or those searching rebukes of Romanism con- 
tained in the charges to his clergy. Independent as 
both his friends and enemies acknowledge him to have 

^Sermon on John xix, 30. 



HAEE AND MAURICE. 



465 



been, his misfortune was an excessive reliance upon his 
own imagination and upon the opinions of those whom 
he admired. Nature made him capable of intimate 
friendships, both personal and intellectual. No one 
can examine his life without loving the man, nor read 
his fervent words without concluding that the Church 
has been honored by few men of his noble type. That 
self-sacrifice and sympathy of which he often spoke feel- 
ingly in connection with the humiliation of Christ, 
were the controlling principles of his heart. Let not 
the veil with which we would conceal his theological 
defects obscure, in the least, the brightness of his re- 
splendent character and jDure purjDoses. 

No view of Hare's position can be complete without 
embracing that of his brother-in-law, Maurice ; both of 
whom were ardently sympathetic with Coleridge. But 
while the former gave a more evangelical cast to his 
master's opinions than they originally possessed, the 
latter perverted them by unwarranted speculations. 
Maurice was one of the most influential of the Ra- 
tionalistic teachers of England. He did not employ 
himself, like Kingsley and others of the Broad Church, 
in publishing his theological sentiments in the form of 
religious novels, but had the commendable frankness 
to state his opinions without circumlocution, and to 
furnish us with his creed in a single volume of essays.^ 

Maurice's notion of an ideal ci-eation betrays the 
media through which he has received it, — from Cole- 
ridge to Neo-Platonism, and thence to Plato. The crea- 
tion of herbs, flowers, beasts, birds, and fishes, as re- 
corded in the first chapter of Genesis, was the bringing 

* Theological Essays. Second Edition. London, 1853. Maurice was 
an industrious and attractive writer, his publications, on a wide variety 
of themes, numbering about forty. 



466 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



forth of kinds and orders, such as they were according 
to the mind of God, not of actual separate phenomenal 
existences, such as they present themselves to the senses 
of man.-^ The creation of man is disposed of in the same 
ideal way ; so that we are inclined to ask the critic if 
man is not, after all, only a Platonic idea ? " What I 
wish you particularly to notice," says he, " is that the 
part of the record which speaks of man ideally, accord- 
ing to his place with reference to God, is the part which 
expressly belongs to the history of creation ; that the 
bringing forth of man in this sense, is the work of the 
sixth day. . . . Extend this thought, which seems 
to rise inevitably out of the story of the creation of man^ 
as Moses delivers it, to the seat of that universe of which 
he regards man as the climax, and we are forced to the 
conclusion that in the one case, as in the other, it is not 
the visible, material thing of which the historian is 
speaking, but that which lies belovr the visible material 
thing, and constitutes the substance which it shows 
forth." 2 

Maurice assumes also, with Neo-Platonism, that Christ 
is the archetype of every human being, and that when 
a man becomes pure he is only developing the Christ 
who was within him already. " The Son was really in 
Saul of Tarsus, and he only became Paul the converted 
when that Son was revealed in him. . . . Christ is 
in every man. . . . All may call upon God as a rec- 
onciled Father. Human beings are redeemed, not in 
consequence of any act they have done, of any faith 
they have exercised ; their faith is to be grounded on a 
foregone conclusion ; their acts are to be the fruits of a 
state they already possess." ^ 

* Lectures on the Old Testament^ p. 6. 
' Ibid. pp. 3-6. 

® Unity of the New Testament. Introduction. \)\). xxi-xxvi. 



OPINIONS OF MAUEICE. 



467 



From this premise alone the theological system of 
Maurice may be accurately determined. Sin is an evil 
from which we should strive to effect an escape, but it is 
nothing more, neither guilt nor responsibility, only a 
condition of our life and not a consequence of actual 
disobedience of God's law, or the effect of his displeas- 
ure. Deep below it there is a righteousness capable of 
asserting its sovereignty. Job had a righteousness 
within him, which led him to say, " I know that my 
Redeemer liveth.'' Those persons who prate about our 
miserable condition as sinners, have a secret reserve 
of belief that there is that in them which is not sin, 
which is the very opposite of sin. . . . Each man 
has got this sense of righteousness, whether he realizes 
it distinctly or indistinctly ; whether he expresses it 
courageously, or keeps it to himself." ^ 

The nature of the atonement, Maurice holds, is a sub- 
ject of misconception, and the notions of it, as they now 
obtain in Christendom, darken and bewilder the mind. 
What Christ has really done for us through suffering was 
his matchless sympathy ; he became our brother, and 
was not our mediatorial substitute but a natural repre- 
-sentative. On this ground, a regeneration is communi- 
cated to all, not by virtue of any appropriating faith, 
but as a result of the sympathetic death of Christ. The 
justification of humanity has been secured by his incar- 
nation, and the penalty resulting from sin is a mere scar 
of the healed wound. Natural death is not the separa- 
tion of soul and body, though both are affected by it; 
for the body w^hich seems to die is only the corruption 
resulting from our sins, and the real body does not die. 
Hence, there can never be any general resurrection or 
judgment. 

* Theological Essays^ p. 61. 



468 



HISTORY OF RATION ALIS.AL 



It is astonishing that a man who unhesitatingly prop- 
agated these views could have held office within the pale 
of the Established Church ; but Maurice enjoyed high fa- 
vor a number of years before his displacement. Though 
commencing life as a Unitarian and Universalist, he was 
rapidly promoted by the ecclesiastical authorities. He 
took no pains to conceal his theological opinions, and 
yet we find him advancing in King's College, London, 
from the professorship of English Literature to that of 
Ecclesiastical History, and thence to the chair of Di- 
vinity. Some time elapsed after the publication of the 
Essays before Dr. Jelf, Principal of the College, even 
read them, but having made himself acquainted with 
their contents, a correspondence took place between hira 
and Maurice. The result was that the Council pro- 
nounced " the opinions expressed, and the doubts indi- 
cated in the Essays^ and the correspondence respecting 
future punishments and the final issues of the day of 
judgment, to be of dangerous tendency, and likely to 
unsettle the minds of the theological students ; and fur- 
ther decide that his continuance as Professor would be 
seriously detrimental to the interests of the College." 
Maurice also held the office of Chaplain to Lincoln's 
Inn, but in 1860 he was appointed by the Queen to 
the district church of De Vere Street, Marylebone. He 
was professor of Casuistry, Moral Theology, and Moral 
Philosophy at Cambridge from 1866 until his death, 
in 1872. 

The relations of Maui'ice and Kingsley were most 
intimate. Besides their leadership of the Broad Church, 
they were the exponents of Christian Socialism. 

Charles Kingsley made a profound impression upon 
the later thought and life of England. He betrayed 
his martial lineage in the vigor of his pen, and in that 



kingsley's opinions. 



469 



unswerving purpose to counteract what, in his opinion, 
were serious barriers to the progress of the age. That 
he should entertain sympathy with Coleridge might be 
expected from the very cast of his mind, but his adop- 
tion of such a large proportion of that thinker's senti- 
ments may be due to his private educat-ion under the 
care of Der^vent Coleridge, son of the philosopher. 
Though only fifty-five years old when he died at Evers- 
ley, his home for thirty-three years, an enumeration of 
his works shows him to have written theology, philos- 
ophy, poetry, and romance. But his publications be- 
tray unity of purpose. Instead of suffering Christianity 
to be a dead weight upon society, he would adapt it 
to the wants of the masses. He held that when the 
adaptation becomes thorough, when, by any means, the 
people can be made to grasp Christianity, the reflexive 
influence will be so great as to elevate them to a point 
unthought of by the sluggish Church. But what is the 
Christianity w^hich Kingsley would incorporate into the 
life of society ? In the answer to this inquiry is found 
the difference between him and evangelical theologians. 

The advocates of orthodoxy maintain that Chris- 
tianity is a remedial dispensation, introduced to meet an 
evil which could not be counteracted by any other 
agency, human or divine ; but with Kingsley it is only 
the outward exhibition of what had ever existed in a 
concealed state. Man has always been one with the 
Word, or Son of God, and, by virtue of the nature of 
each, they are in perfect union. Christ manifested the 
union first when he appeared on earth in the incarnate 
state, since he came to declare to men that they were 
not estranged from him, but had always been, and still 
were, in harmony with him. Men are not craven enemies 
of God, which error a harsh theology would make them 



470 



mSTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



believe. They are his friends, for Christ regarded them 
complacently as such ; and the atonement must not be 
deemed the reconciliation of sinful humanity and angry 
Deity, but as the first manifestation of an ever-existing 
unity of the two parties. We need not pass through 
the long ordeal of repentance to be placed in the rela- 
tion of sons ; because we are all by nature " members 
of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the King- 
dom of Heaven." ^ 

The Church, according to Kingsley, is the world in 
a certain aspect. " The world," says an English writer, 
ill stating Kingsley's opinion, "is called the Church 
when it recognizes its relation to God in Christ, and acts 
accordingly. The Church is the world lifting itself up 
into the sunshine ; the world is the Church falling into 
shadow and darkness. When and where the light and 
life that are in the world break out into bright, or 
noble, or holy word or deed, then and there the world 
shows that the nature and glory of the Church live 
within it. Every man of the world is not only poten- 
tially, but virtually a member of Christ's Church, what- 
ever may, for the present, be his character or seeming. 
Like the colors in shot silk, or on a dove's neck, the dif- 
ference of hue and denomination depends merely upon 
the degi-ee of light, and the angle of vision. In con- 
formity with this principle, Mr. Kingsley's theology al- 
together secularizes the Kingdom of Christ." ^ 

Kingsley's views of the offices of the Holy Spirit 
indicate a decided approbation of the pantheistic theory. 
The third person of the Trinity operates not only upon 

* Sermom on National Subjects. First Series, p. 14. London Edition. 

' Modern Anglican Theology. By the Rev. J. H. Rigg. Second Edi- 
tion. London, 1859. The student of contemporary theology will find this 
work the best summary of the opinions of Coleridge and his school. 

f 



KINGSLEy's HTJMANITAEIAN EFFOETS. 47 1 



man, but througli him upon the secular and intellectual 
life of the world. Poetry, romance, and each act of 
induction, are the work of the Spirit, whose agency 
secures all the material and scientific growth of the 
world. Without that power, the car of progress, 
whether in letters, mechanics, or ethics, must stop. 

Kingsley would elevate the degraded portion of the 
race until the lowest member be made to feel the trans- 
muting agency of Christianity. He was first led into 
sympathy with the poor operatives in the English fac- 
tories by reading Mayhew's Slcetches of London Labor 
and London Pooi\ and, in connection with Maurice, or- 
ganized cooperative laboring associations as a check to 
the crushing system of competitive labor. Their plans 
succeeded, and many abject working men have been 
brought into a higher social and moral condition than 
they had hitherto enjoyed. These humanitarian efforts 
have attracted large numbers to the reception of the 
tenets entertained by those putting them forth. " For," 
the unthinking say, " if the opinions of these men will 
lead them to labor on this wise for the social elevation 
of our fellow-beings, they must needs be correct and, if 
so, worthy of our reception." But if Neo-Platonism can 
make Maurices, Kingsleys, and a whole school of Mus- 
cular Christians " and " Christian Socialists," nothing 
less than the pure religion of Christ can raise up 
Howards, Wilberforces, and Budgetts. 

The philosopher has always exerted a great power 
upon those who do not philosophize. He is regarded 
by many as the inhabitant of a sphere which few can 
enter, and his dictates are heard as fiats of a rightful 
ruler. Those who cannot understand him fully often 
congratulate themselves that the few unmistakable 



472 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM- 



grains they have gathered from his opinions are nuggets 
of pure gold, and entitled to the merit of becoming the 
world's currency. The philosopher is not his own in- 
terpreter. There has seldom been one who knew how 
to tell his thoughts to the masses. That is the province 
of the popular writers who have adopted his opinions, 
and know how to deal them out almost imperceptibly 
in the form of poetry and fiction. One great philo- 
sophical mind has sometimes dictated the literature of 
generations, and, in earlier periods, of entire centuries. 

This influence of philosophy on literature is fur- 
nished with a new illustration at the present day; 
some of the most popular and attractive writers of 
Great Britain have extracted their opinions from one 
or more of the later philosophers of Germany, and in- 
corporated them into current poetry, romance, and his- 
tory. The effect has been to furnish the people with a 
literature which possesses all the weight of vital relig- 
ious truth in tlie minds of those readers who prefer- 
to derive their creed from some enchanter in letters to 
seeking it immediately from the Bible or its most re- 
liable interpreters. 

The department of literature in question inculcates 
as its cardinal principle that man is unconscious of his 
power, he can do what seems impossible, does not 
worship his fellows enough, is purer than his clerical 
leaders would have him imagine, and ought, like 
certain of his predecessors, to arouse to lofty efforts, 
assert his dignity and divinity, and strive to ad- 
vance the world to its proper glory and perfection. 
The authors of these exciting and flattering appeals do 
not surround their theory with proper safeguards, nor 
do they tell the world that they have served up a de- 
lectable dish of Pantheism for popular deglutition. 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



473 



The case stated clearly by one who understood the 
danger of this tendency, and whose pen was always 
powerful in exposing its absurdity. " In our general 
literature," says Bayne, " the principle we have enunci- 
ated undergoes modification, and, for the most part, is 
by no means expressed as pantheism. We refer to that 
spirit of self assertion, which lies so deep in what may 
be called the religion of literature, to that wide-spread 
tendency to regard all reform of the individual man as 
being an evolution of some hidden nobleness, or an 
appeal to a perfect internal light or law, together with 
what may be called the worship of genius, the habit of 
nourishing all hope on the manifestation of the 
divine, by gifted individuals. We care not how this 
last remarkable characteristic of the time be defined; 
to us its connection with pantheism, and more or less 
close dependence on the teaching of that of Germany, 
seem plain, but it is enough that we discern in it an 
influence definably antagonistic to the spirit of Chris- 
tianity." ^ 

The parentage of literary Rationalism in England 
is attributable to Thomas Carlyle. Having " found his 
soul " in the philosophy of Germany, we hear him, in 
1827, defending the criticism of Kant as " distinctly the 
greatest intellectual achievement of the century in 
which it came to light." But the opinions of Fichte 
and Richter subsequently had more weight with 
Carlyle, and he elaborated them in many forms. 
Fichte, in particular, influenced him to adopt a the- 
oiy which gives a practical denial to the scriptural 
declarations of the fallen state of humanity. Effort 
being goodness, the exterior world is only tolerable 
because it furnishes an arena for the contest of woi'k. 

^ Christian Life, p. 14. American Edition. 



474 TIISTOET OF RATIONALISM. | 

Man will never receive any prize unless he "bestir him- 
self to the exercise of his own omnipotence. Individual 
life is all the real life possessed by this world, and it is 
gifted with a sj)iritual wand capable of calling up 
wondrous forms of beauty and worth. It matters not 
so much what man worts for, since his eflfort is the im- 
portant matter. All ages have had a few true men. 
The assertion of self-hood constitutes greatness ; and 
Zoroaster, Cromwell, Julius Caesar, and Frederic the 
Great ; heroes of any creed or no creed, pagan or Jew, 
ai'e the world's worthies, its great divinities. Men need 
not be conscious that they are doing great deeds while 
in the act, nor, when the work is accomplished, that 
they have performed anything worthy a school-boy's 
notice. On the other hand, worth is tested by actual 
unconsciousness, " which teaches that all self-knowledge 
is a curse, and introspection a disease ; that the true 
health of a man is to have a soul without being aware 
of it, — to be disposed of by impulses which he never 
criticises, — to fling out the products of creative genius 
without looking at them." 

Man is the centre of the universe, which is every- 
where clothed with life. His is a spiritual power 
capable of effecting the great transformations needed 
by his fellows. Let him be earnest, then, and evolve 
the fruits of his wonderful strength. Since his mission 
is work, here is Carlyle's gospel which calls him to it : 
Work is of a religious nature ; all true work is sacred ; 
in all true work, were it but true hand-labor, there is 
something of divineness. Labor, wide as the earth, has 
its summit in heaven. Sweat of the brow ; and up 
fi^om that to the sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart ; 
which includes all Kepler calculations, Newton medita^ 
tions, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroisms, 



caelyle's philosophy. 



475 



martyrdoms,— up to that ' Agony of bloody sweat,' 
wHcli all men have called divine ! O brother, if this 
is not ' worship,' then I say the more pity for worship; 
for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's 
sky." Work implies power, and power in the individ- 
ual is what society needs to keep it within proper 
bounds. Social life requires the will of the single mind 
and hand; republicanism is therefore the dream of 
fanatics, and ought not to be tolerated anywhere. Pop- 
ular rights are a fiction which the strong hand ought 
to dissipate at a thrust. The greatest men are the 
greatest despots, and the exercise of their unlimited 
authority is what entitles them to our worship. Napo- 
leon III. preaches the pure gospel of politics in his 
Life of Julius Ccesar, Absolute subjection — call it 
slavery, if you please — is the proper state of large 
bodies of helpless humanity, who are absolutely de- 
pendent upon some master of iron will for guidance 
and development. 

Such being Carlyle's view of human rights, it is 
not surprising that he applauded the most gigantic 
effort in history to establish a government upon the 
system of human bondage. But all slavery will by 
and by vanish like the tobacco-smoke of " Teufels- 
drockh." Part of the world's best work will be the 
unceasing effort for its universal and perpetual extermi- 
nation ; and posterity will honor those who labor for 
this consummation as greater benefactors and workers 
than all the divinities idolized by the author of Sartor 
Resartus and the Life of Frederic the Great 

While Carlyle's system does not appear to flatter 
humanity its effect is of that character. He would 
make his readers believe that they are pure, great, 
and capable beings like those deified by him. The adu- 



476 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



latioa being too great for many who peruse his pages, 
large numbers of readers are led into dangerous ^^agaries, 
" The influence of Carlyle's writings " says an essayist, 
" and especially of his Sartor Resartus^ has been 
primarily exerted on classes of men most exposed to 
temptations of egotism and petulance, and least sub- 
jected to anything above them, — academics, artists, lit- 
terateurs^ strong-minded women, ^ debating ' youths, 
Scotchmen of the phrenological grade, and Irishmen of 
the young-Ireland school." * There are very many be- 
side this gi'otesque group, who exclaim, with one of his 
warmest admirers, " Carlyle is my religion ! " There 
are others again who say gratefully what John Sterling 
wrote him in his last brief letter, " Towards me it is 
still more true than towards England that no man has 
been and done like you." ^ 

The time has now come when men have awaked 
from the spell of the charmer of Chelsea. The illusion 
has ali'eady been dissipated, and many of his readers 
in Great Britain and America feel deeply and almost 
despairingly that, in the original fountain of his teach- 
ing, there was "a poison-drop which killed the plants 
it was expected to nourish, and left a sterile waste 
where men looked for the bloom and the opulence of 
a garden of God." It behooves those who idolize him 
to examine the image before which they stand. He 
was a man of unquestioned boldness and some origi- 
nality, and no one of his generation had gi*eater power 
to dazzle and bewilder the young. Happily, age brings 
with it the clearing up of much of the obscurity of 
youth, and from the additional light of increasing years 
has come the illumination of many a mind obscured 

^ National Review^ Oct., 1856. 
^ Life of Sterling, ]i. SS4:. 



THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 



477 



hj his sentiments. Eobert Alfred Vaughan, a care- 
inl observer of the tendencies of English thought, 
fiays : " It may not be flattering to Mr. Carlyle, but we 
believe it to be true that by far the larger portion of 
the best minds, whose early youth his writings have 
powerfully influenced, will look back upon the period 
of such subjection as the most miserably morbid period 
of their life. On awaking from such delirium to the 
sane and healthful realities of manfal toil, they will dis- 
cover the hollo wness of that sneering, scowling, wailing, 
declamatory, egotistical, and bombastic misanthropy, 
which, in the eye of their unripe judgment, wore the 
air of a philosophy so profound." ^ The time has also 
come when Carlyle stands revealed to all in his true 
character : as the theologian preaching a pagan creed ; 
as the philosopher emasculating the German philosophy 
which he scrupled not to borrow ; as the stylist pervert- 
ing the "pure English of Milton and Shakespeare into 
inflated, oracular Richterisms; and as the arch dema- 
gogue who, despising the people at heart, assigned no 
bounds to his ambition to gain their hearing and cajole 
them into the reception of his unmixed Pantheism. 

The periodical press has been a successful agency in 
the dissemination of literary Rationalism throughout 
the British Islands. Years before the recent discussions 
sprang up, the Westminster Review was the ablest and 
most avowed of all the advocates of the " liberal theol- 
ogy " of the Continent. It still outdoes all rivals. 

Matthew Arnold is a later representative of the 
literary Rationalism. In his Literature and Dogma, 
published in 187B, he makes "An Essay toward a bet- 
ter Apprehension of the Bible." He would eliminate 
the personal element from the God of the Bible. His 

^ Essays and Eemaijis, vol. i, pp. 7-8. 

32 



478 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



plea is that we ought to read into its pages what was 
never put there — a pantheistic substitute of an imper- 
sonal force for the all-loving, all-ruling Father, and this 
is put forth as a method of preserving the Scriptures. 
He took from Goethe the thought of self-culture as the 
chief duty of man. While confessing that Christianity 
is the greatest and happiest stroke ever yet made for 
human perfection, and that perfection in conduct can 
be reached only with the Bible and Christianity, yet 
he vaguely held that these will be displaced by the 
progress of man in culture through the ages. 

Durino; the closinfy decades of the nineteenth cen- 
tury the spread of Rationalism in England has been 
greatly advanced by the evolutionism of Darwin, Wal- 
lace, and Spencer. Darwin was the first to gather data 
which were supposed to prove the development of the 
higher species from the lower through the operation of 
the so-called laws of ^'natural selection" and the "sur- 
vival of the fittest." Wallace, though prescribing limits 
to the efficiency of evolution in explaining the phe- 
nomena of human life in its higher realms, lent a strong 
impetus to the acceptance of biological evolution ; while 
Herbert Spencer developed a philosophy, which, dis- 
carding the crude biological theory of some of the 
prominent adherents of Darwinism, and advocating 
what has been termed "psychological evolution," ap- 
plies the principle of development to all the phases of 
human life — physical, mental, and moral. 

Herbert Spencer is the leading mind of the modern 
philosophical Rationalism. In his I^i7'st Principles 
(1862) he contends that the first cause, which he would 
call the "fundamental verity," is unknowable because 
it cannot be classed — there being nothing of the same 
kind with which to class it. But what is the signifi- 



EVOLUTIONISM. 



479 



cance of " first " if it be not to indicate one of a class 
of objects, one that stands at the head and is distin- 
guishable indeed from all the rest by its preeminence 
and its position at the beginning of the series, but 
nevertheless distinctly cognizable as a separate object 
of thought ? The claim of Spencer, borrowed from 
Hamilton, that nothing is knowable that cannot be 
classed, will hardly be universally accepted as an axiom 
by all thinkers ; for is it not true that individual ob- 
jects are first known before they are or can be referred 
to a class ? Is it not a fact that all "classes" are made 
up of separate objects w^hich have been cognized as 
such prior to their classification ? Again, if nothing 
can be known until it can be referred to a wilder and 
more inclusive ''class," then a "class" cannot be known 
unless it itself can be referred to a larger " class," and 
this in turn to another, and so on until we reach the 
broadest or most inclusive of all — which by the Spen- 
cerian test is unknowable. Where does or can knowl- 
edge begin ? 

In its seductive charm and its far-reaching influence, 
Darwinism has been to England what higher criticism 
has been to Germany. Its first effect was a note of 
triumph from all opponents of the supernatural. Here 
a rational explanation of the origin of things without 
a Creator had at last been produced. On the other 
hand there was consternation on the part of those who 
believed in revelation. As the promoters of evolution- 
ism widely heralded their theory as demonstrated truth, 
and the latent popular infidelity eagerly accepted it as 
such, the defenders of theism were for some years put 
upon the defensive. Many entered into a compromise 
with the new theoiy, taking the ground that, while there 
was sufificient evidence to support the theory of the 



480 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



development of organisms from a primitive cell, yet 
this would in nowise militate against the acceptance 
of the God of theism ; that even evolutionists could not 
explain the origin of organized matter without the in- 
tervention of a First Cause ; and that hence the devel- 
opment theory and Christian faith could walk side by 
side in beautiful harmony. That this harmony is pos- 
sible is illusti'ated in the life of Romanes, an ardent 
disciple and intimate fiiend of Darwin himself. In his 
youth he had been an earnest Christian, but later he 
was carried away by the spirit of infidelity and wrote 
one of the strongest arraignments of Christianity ever 
produced.^ Yet a deeper study of the questions in- 
volved in the great problem of our existence again 
brought him ])aek; and, while he I'emained a defender 
of Darwin's theory to the end, he died in the full faith 
of the Christian religion, having first produced a work 
in which his former infidel notions were completely 
refuted.'^ A deeper study of natural science and phi- 
losophy has, however, produced the same reaction in 
England that was brought about in Germany by a 
more thorough use of the "critical apparatus." Evolu- 
tionism is still a Avell-known theory; but is regarded 
only an hypothesis still waiting for its proofs. 

Tennyson, in "Akbar's Dream," has beautifully 
voiced the true attitude of the human thinker rever- 
ently using the powers of reason : 

I can but lift the torch 
Of reason in the dusky cave of life, 
And gaze on this great miracle, the world. 
Adoring That who made, and makes, and is, 
And is not what I gaze on. 



* A Candid Examination of Theism, 1878. 

^ Thoughts on Religion. Edited by Charles Gore. 



2d ed., Chicago, 1895. 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

ENGLAND CONTINUED: CRITICAL RATIONALISM— JO WETT 
THE ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, AND COLENSO. ' 

The devout disciple of Ckrist regards tlie Scriptures 
witli profound reverence, for tliey contain tlie doctrines 
wHcli show him his path to the pure life of heaven. 
His theological opponents are not blind to this attach- 
ment, nor are they ignorant of the service of the Bible 
in supporting the entire Christian system. It could not 
therefore be expected that, \yhile literature and phi- 
losophy were affected by Rationalism, the Scriptures 
should escape with impunity. There lay a deep de- 
structive purpose beneath the brief utterance of Dr. 
Temple, " The immediate work of our day is the 
study of the Bible." ^ The Critical Rationalism of 
England which has attracted the attention of the 
civilized world was of rapid growth, but the energy 
with which it has been cultivated is unsurpassed in 
the annals of skepticism. 

Professor Jo^vett's commentary on the Epistles to 
Tliessalonians^ Galatians^ and Romans^ was published 
in 1855. Coming from a highly respectable source, and 
assailing the doctrines of revelation boldly, it was a 
clear indication of what might be expected from the 
Critical Rationalists as a class. 

^ Essays arid E&Diews. Edited, with an Introduction, by Rev. F. H- 
Hedge, D. D. Boston, 1862. 



482 



HISTOKY OF RATIOKALISM. 



I 



Tlie doctrine of the atonement, according to this 
v\Titer, is involved in perplexities whose growth is of 
more than a thousand years. Christ did not die to ap- 
pease the divine wrath, and " sacrifice " and " atonement " 
were accommodated terms used by the apostles because 
they had been reared among the Jewish offerings and 
were familiar with them. The great advantage we de- 
rive from Christ is his life, in which we behold a perfect 
harmony of nature, absolute self renunciation, pure love, 
and resignation. We know nothing of the objective 
act on God's part by which he reconciled the world to 
himself, the very description of it being a figure of 
speech. Conversion is not in accordance with the 
claims of orthodoxy, for, while there were conver- 
sions in the early Church, there is no possibility of 
establishing a harmony between them and those which 
are now said to occur. The conversions of the first 
Christians were marked by ecstatic and unusual phenom- 
ena, whole multitudes were simultaneously affected, and 
the changes wrought were permanent; but the subjects 
were chiefly ignorant people, who no doubt did many 
things which would have been distasteful to us as men 
of education.^ 

The most noteworthy work of the Critical Rational- 
ists is the Essays and Reviews (1860), a volume which 
consists of broad generalizations against the authority 
of the Bible as a standard of faith. 

I. The Education of the World. By Frederic Tem- 
ple, D. D. There is a radical difference between man 
and inanimate nature. The latter is passive, and sub- 
ject to the workings of the vast physical machinery, but 
man is at no time stationary, for he develops f^om age 
to age, and concentrates in his history the results and 

* Commentary on St, PauVs Epistles. — Noyea' Essays^ pp. 222-276. 



DR. temple's essay. 



483 



iicliievemeiits of all previous history. There is no real 
difference between the capacity of men now and that of 
the antediluvian world ; the ground of disparity lies in 
the time of development afforded the present generation. 
Thus a child of twelve stands at present where once 
stood the full-grown man. 

There are three stages in the world's development : 
Childhood, Youth, Maturity. Childhood requires posi- 
tive rules, and is made subject to them; youth is gov- 
erned by the force of example ; and manhood, being free 
from external restraints, must be its own instructor. 
We have first rules, then examples, and last princi- 
ples the Law, the Son of Man, and the Gift of the 
Spirit. The world was once a child, under tutors and 
governors until the time appointed by the Father. Aft- 
erward, when the fit season had arrived, the Example, 
to which all ages should turn, was sent to teach men what 
they ought to be ; and the human race was left to itself, 
to be guided by the instruction of the Spirit within.^ The 
world, before the time of Christ, was in its childhood, 
when commands were given without explanation. The 
pre-Christian world, being in its state of discipline and 
childhood, was divided into four classes : the Koman, 
the Greek, the Asiatic, and the Hebrew, each of which 
contributed something toward the world's improvement 
and its preparation for the age of Example. The He- 
brew did the most, though his work was of the same 
class and aimed at the same result. The Eoman gave an 
iron will ; the Greek, a cultivated reason and taste ; the 
Asiatic, the idea of immortality, and spiritual imagina- 
tion ; and the Hebrew, the trained conscience. 

The whole period from the close of the old Testa- 
ment to the termination of the New was the time of the 

^ Essays and Reviews^ pp. 5-6. 



484 



mSTORr OF RATIONALISM. 



world's youth, tlie age of examples/ Christ came just 
at the right time ; if he had waited until the present 
age his incarnation would have been misplaced, and 
we could not recognize his di\dnity ; for the faculty of 
faith has turned inward, and cannot now accept any 
outward manifestations of the truth of God.^ 

The present age is that of independent reflection and 
the supremacy of conscience — the world's manhood. 
Laws and examples are obsolete, and should be forgot- 
ten, just as we look lightly upon the things of our child- 
hood. The world has arrived at its present exalted 
state through a severe ordeal, but the grandeur of its 
position is sufficient to make it forget its trials. " The 
spirit or conscience [which are terms for reason] comes 
to full stren2:th and assumes the throne intended for him 
in the soul. As an accredited judge, invested with full 
powers, he sits in the tribunal of our inner kingdom, 
decides upon the past, and legislates upon the future, 
without appeal except to himself He decides not by 
what is beautiful or noble, or soul-inspiring, but by what 
is right. Gradually he frames his code of laws, revising, 
adding, abrogating, as a wiser and deeper experience 
gives him clearer light. He is the third great teacher 
and the last." ^ 

In some aspects this essay is the least objectionable 
in the volume. Yet it contains radical errors which many 
a reader would accept without suspicion. The agency 
of the Holy Spirit in revelation is ignored, and the de- 
velopment through which the world has passed is con- 
founded with civilization. This development is alleged to 
have occurred in a purely natural way, the Hebrew 
type being no more a divine appointment than that of 

^ Essays and Reviews^ p. 37. 
Ibid. p. 39. ^ Ibid. pp. 35-36. 



DR. WILLIAMS' ESSAY. 



485 



the Grecian or Roman. Tlie doctrines of Christianity 
were not clearly stated in the early Church, and the 
flight of eighteen centuries has been required to liffc 
the curtain from them.^ Conscience is placed above the 
Bible, and if the statements of the Scriptures be in con- 
flict with it, allowance must be made for occasional in« 
accuracies, interpolations, and forgeries.^ 

II. Bunsen's Biblical Researches. By Rowland 
Williams, D. D. We here find the same deference paid 
to conscience as in the preceding essay. If it differ from 
revelation, man's own notions of right and wrong must 
prevail over Scripture. Dr. Williams is contented with 
arraying Bunsen's skeptical theories before the British 
public without formally indorsing them himself ; yet, 
as their reviewer, he is evidently in complete harmony 
with the German author. For he carefully collects 
the chevalier's extravagant speculations ; brings them 
into juxtaposition; admires the spirit, boldness, and 
learning which had given birth to them ; and in no case 
refutes, but looks with complacence upon nearly every 
one. The impression of a candid reader of the essay 
must be, that the writer indorses almost all of Bunsen's 
opinions without having the courage to avow his as- 
sent. Of his hero he says, " Bunsen's enduring glory is 
neither to have faltered with his conscience, nor shrunk 
from the difficulties of the problem, but to have 
brought a vast erudition, in the light of a Christian 
conscience, to unroll tangled records ; tracing frankly the 
Spirit of God elsewhere, but borrowing chiefly the tra^ 
ditions of his Hebrew Sanctuary." * 

' For an able refutation of this point, see Houglitoii, Rationalism in 
the Church of England, pp. 127-136. 
" Essays and Eemews, p. 54. 
' Ibid. p. 60. 



486 • HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. j 

The absence of that reverence to be expected in all 
whose vocation enjoins the frequent reading of the sub- 
lime liturgy of the Church of England produces a de- 
pressing influence upon any one not in sympathy with the 
doctrines of Rationalism. The Evangelical theologians 
are termed "The despairing school, who forbid us to 
trust in God or in our own conscience, unless we kill 
our souls with literalism." ^ The inquiries and suc- 
cesses of the German Rationalists are worthy of hearty 
admiration, for they are so great that the world has sel- 
dom, if ever, seen their equal. Bishops Pearson and 
Butler, and Mi*. Mansel are seriously at fault in their 
notions of prophecy, and even Jerome is guilty of gross 
puerilities. There is no reason why Bunsen may not 
be right when he holds that the world must be twenty 
thousand years old ; there is no chronological element 
in revelation ; the avenger who slew the first-born may 
have been the Bedouin host ; in the passage of the Red 
Sea, the description may be interpreted with the latitude 
of poetry ; it is right to reject the perversions which 
make the cursing Psalms evangelically inspired ; per- 
haps one passage in Zechariah and one in Isaiah may be 
direct prophecies of the Messiah, and possibly a chap- 
ter in Deuteronomy may foreshadov7 the final fall of 
Jerusalem ; the Messianic prophecies are mere con- 
temporaneous history; and the fifty-third chapter of 
Isaiah is only a description of the sufferings of Jeremiah. 
Inspiration is too loftily conceived by " the well-meaning 
crowd," for whom we should manifest " grave compas- 
sion." 

What is the Bible, continues the essayist, but the 
written voice of the congregation, and not the written 
voice of God? Why all this reverence for the sacred 

* Essays and Reviews^ p. 68. 



BADEN Powell's essay. 



487 



writers, since they acknowledge themselves men of like 
passions with us ? Justification by faith is merely peace 
of mind from trust in a righteous God, and not a fiction 
of merit by transfer. Regeneration is a correspondent 
giving of insight or an awakening of the forces of the 
soul ; propitiation is the recovery of peace, and the atone- 
ment is our sharing the Saviour's Spirit, but not his pur- 
chase of us by his own blood. Throughout the Scrip- 
tures we should assume in ourselves a verifying faculty, — 
conscience, reason, or whatever else we choose to term it. 

III. On the Study of the Evidences of Christian- 
ity. By Baden Powell, M.A. The author of this essay 
died soon after its publication, and thus incurred less 
censure than he would otherwise have received. The 
views here expressed, taken in connection with his more 
elaborate treatise on the Order of Nature^ do not place 
him on the same theoretical ground with Hume and 
Spinoza ; but the moral effect of this writer's attack 
upon miracles as an evidence of Christianity is not less 
antagonistic than the theories of either of those authors. 
Spinoza held that miracles are impossible, because it 
would be derogatory to God to depart from the estab- 
lished laws of the universe, and one of Hume's objec- 
tions to them was their incapability of being proved 
from testimony.^ 

Professor Powell objects to them because they bear 
no analogy to the harmony of God's dealings in the 
material world ; and insists that they are not to be cred- 
ited, since they are a violation of the laws of matter or 
an interruption of the course of physical causes. The 
orthodox portion of the Church are laboring under the 
egregious error of making them an essential doctrine, 
when they are really a mere external accessory. Eea- 

* Replies to Ensays and Reviews, p. 135 



488 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



son, and not " our desires " must come to our aid in all 
examination of them. The key-note to Professor Pow- 
ell's opposition is contained in the following statement : 
" From tlie nature of our antecedent convictions, the 
probability of some kind of mistake or deception some- 
where, though we know not where, is greater than the 
probability of the event really happening in the way 
and from the causes assigned." ^ The inductive philoso- 
phy, for which great respect must be paid, is enlisted 
asfainst miracles. If we once knew all about those al- 
leged and held as such, we w^ould find them resolved 
into natural phenomena, just a^5 " the angel at Milan was 
the aerial reflection of an image on a church ; the balls 
of fire at Plausac were electrical ; the sea-serpent was a 
baskins: shark on a stem of sea-weed. A committee of 
the French Academy of Sciences, with Lavoisier at its 
head, after a grave investigation, pronounced the al- 
leged fall of aerolites to be a superstitious fable," ^ 

The two theories against the reality of miracles in. 
their received sense, are: first, that they are attribu- 
table to natural causes ; and, second, that they may in- 
volve more or less of the parabolic or mythic character. 
These assumptions do away with any real admission of 
miracles even on religious grounds. The animus of the 
whole essay may be determined by the following 
treatment of testimony and reason : " Testimony, after 
all, is but a second-hand assurance ; it is but a blind 
guide ; testimony can avail nothing against reason. 
The essential question of miracles stands quite apart 
from any consideration of testimony ; but the question 
would remain the same, if we had the evidence of our 
own senses to an alleged miracle ; that is, to an extra- 

^ Essays and Reviews^ p. 120. 
' Ibid. p. 155. 



Wilson's essay. 



489 



ordinary or inexplicable fact. It is not the mere fact, 
but the cause or explanation of it, which is the point 
at issue." ^ This means far more than Spinoza, Hume, 
or any other opponent of miracles, except the radical 
Rationalists of Germany, has claimed, — that we must 
Bot believe a miracle though actually witnessed. 

IV. Seances Historiques de Gejsteye — The Na- 
tional Church. By Henry Bristow Wilson, B. D. 
The Multitudinist principle, or Broad Christianity, is 
advocated by the essayist with earnestness and an array 
of learning. The difficulty concerning the non-attend- 
ance of a large portion of the British population upon 
the ordinances of the Church is met by the proposition 
to abrogate subscription to all creeds and articles of 
faith, and thus convert the whole nation into a Broad 
Church. The youth of the land are educated into a 
false and idolatrous view of the Bible. But on the 
Census-Sunday of 1861, five millions and a quarter of 
persons, or forty-two per cent, of the whole population, 
were not present at service. Many of these people do 
not believe some of the doctrines preached ; they have 
thought seriously, but cannot sympathize with what 
they are compelled to hear. If we break down all sub- 
scription and include them in the great National Church, 
we shall approach the scriptural ideal. Unless this be 
done they will fall into Dissenting hands, and die out- 
side the Church of Christ. There are several proofs of 
the scriptural indorsement of Nationalism ; Christ's 
lament over Jerusalem declares that he had offered 
Multitudiuism to the inhabitants nationally, while the 
three thousand souls converted on the day of Pentecost 
cannot be supposed to have been individual converts, 
but merely a mass of persons brought in as a body. 

* Essays and Bevieios, p. 159. 



490 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



Some of the converts of the apostolic age did not believe 
in the resurrection, which fact implies that the early 
Churches took collective names from the localities where 
they were situated, and that doubt of the resurrection 
should now be no bar to communion in the National 
Church. Even heathenism in its best form proceeded 
on the Multitudinist principle, for all were included as 
believers in the faith of the times. The approval of 
reason and conscience, and not verbal adherence to hu- 
man interpretation of Scripture, should be the great 
test of membership. Advice is administered by the 
essayist to the Church of which he is a clergyman, in 
this language : " A national church may also find itself 
in this position ; which, perhaps, is our own. Its minis- 
ters may become isolated between two other parties, — 
between those, on the one hand, who draw fanatical infer- 
ences from formularies and principles which they them- 
selves are not able or are unwilling to repudiate ; and 
on the other, those who have been tempted, in impa- 
tience of old fetters, to follow free thought heedlessly 
wherever it may lead them. If our own churchmen 
expect to discoui^age and repress a fanatical Christianity 
without a frank appeal to reason, and a frank criticism 
of Scripture, they will find themselves without any 
effectual arms for that combat ; or if they attempt to 
check inquiry by the repetition of old forms and denun- 
ciations, they will be equally powerless, and run the 
especial risk of turning into bitterness the sincerity of 
those who should he their best allies, as friends of 
tnith. They should avail themselves of the aid of all 
reasonable persons for enlightening the fanatical relig- 
ionist, making no reserve of any seemingly harmless or 
apparently serviceable superstitions of their own. They 
should also endeavor to sujDply to the negative theo- 



Goodwin's essay. 49 X 

logian some positive elements in Christianity, on 
grounds more sure to him than the assumption of an 
objective ' faith once delivered to the saints,' which he 
cannot identify with the creed of any church as yet 
known to him." ^ 

V. On the Mosaic Cosmogony. By C. W. Good- 
win, M. A. The assumption is made that the Mosaic 
account of creation is irreconcilable with the real crea- 
tion of the earth. We do wrong in elevating that nar- 
rative above its proper position, and orthodox geologists 
have grossly erred in attaching much importance to the 
language of the first chapter of Genesis. There is noth- 
ing poetical or figurative in the whole account ; it con- 
tains no mystical or symbolical meaning, and is a plain 
statement of just so much as suited the Jewish mind. 
All attempts, however, to find any consistency between 
it and the present state of science are simply absurd. 
The theory of Chalmers and Buckland, and afterward 
that of Hugh Miller, are not tenable, for Moses was ig- 
norant of what we now know, and his alleged description 
is contradicted by scientific inquiry. If then it is plain 
that God has not thought it needful to communicate 
to the writer of the scriptural cosmogony the knowl- 
edge revealed by modern researches, why do we not 
confess it ? We would do so if it did not conflict with 
a human theory which presumes to point out how God 
ought to have instructed man.^ The writer had no au- 
thority for what he asserts so solemnly and unhesi- 
tatingly, for he was an early speculator who stated as 
facts what he only conjectured as probabilities. Yet he 
seized one great truth, in which he anticipated the 
highest revelation of modern inquiry ; namely, the unity 

' Essays and Reviews^ pp. 195-196. 
Itid. p. 277. 



492 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



of the design of tlie world, and its subordination to one 
sole Maker and Law-giver.^ But no one contends that 
the Mosaic view can be used as a basis of astronomical 
or geological teaching ; and we must therefore consider 
the scriptural cosmogony not as " an authentic utter- 
ance of divine knowledge, but a human utterance, 
which it has pleased Providence to use in a special 
way for the education of mankind." ^ 

VI. Tendencies of Religious Thought in Eng- 
land, 1688-1750. By Mark Pattison, B. D. We are 
surrounded with a Babel of religious creeds and theories, 
and it is all-important that we should know how we 
have inherited them. If we would understand our times, 
we must know the productive influences of the past; 
if we would thread the present mazes of religious pre- 
tension, we should not neglect those immediate agencies 
in theii* production that had their origin near the begin- 
ning of the eighteenth century. These agencies are 
three in number : 1. The formation and growth of that 
compromise between church and state which is called 
Toleration ; 2. Methodism without the Church and the 
evangelical movement within it ; 3. The growth and 
gradual diffusion, through all religious thinking, of the 
supremacy of reason. The theology of the Deistic age is 
identical with Rationalism. That Rationalistic period of 
England is divided into two parts : ft'om 1688 to 175 0, 
and from 1750 to 1830. The second age may be called 
that of evidences, when the clergy continued to manu- 
facture evidence as an ingenious exercise, — a literature 
which was avowedly professional, a study which might 
seem theology without being it, and which could 
awaken none of the dormant skepticism beneath the 



* Essays and Reoiews^ pp. 277-278. 
» Ibid. p. 278. 




PATTISO^^ A^^D JOWETT 



493 



surface of society.^ Tlie defense of the Deists was per- 
haps as good as the orthodox attack, but they were 
inquirers after truth, and being guided by reason they 
deserve all commendation. Yet they only foreshadowed 
the glory of the present supremacy of reason. Deism 
strove eagerly for light ; it saw the dawn ; the present 
is the noonday. The human understanding wished to 
be satisfied, and did not care to believe that of which 
it could not see the substantial ground. The mind 
was coming slowly to see that it had duties which it 
could not devolve upon others, and that a man must 
think for himself, protect his own rights, and adminis- 
ter his own affairs. 

Keason was never less extravagant than in this first 
€ssay of its strength ; for its demands were modest, and 
it was easily satisfied, — far too easily, we must think, 
when we look at some of the reasonings which passed 
as valid.^ 

English Deism, a system which paralyzed the relig- 
ious life and thought of the nation, has never had a 
more enthusiastic eulogist than the author of this his- 
torical plea for Rationalism. If the demands of the 
Deists were "modest," who shall be able to find a term 
sufficiently descriptive of the claims of their present 
successors ? 

VII. On the Ioterpeetation of Scripture. By 
Benjamin Jowett, M. A. Professor Jowett, as commen- 
tator on St. Paul's epistles, had already so defined his 
position on the science of scriptural exegesis, that we 
needed no new information to be convinced of his 
antagonism to evangelical interpretation. This later 
essay, which is the most formidable and destructive in 

^ Essays and Reviews, p. 287. 
^ Ibid. pp. 328-329. 

33 



494 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



the volume, commences with a lamentation over the 
prevailing differences in the exposition of the Bible. 
The Germans have been far more successful in this re- 
spect than the English people, the former having ai- 
rived at a tolerable degree of concurrence. 

The word " inspiration " is a crux theologorum^ the 
most of its explanations being widely divergent, and at 
variance with the original signification of the term. 
We make it embrace far too much, for there is no foun- 
dation for any high or supernatural views of inspii'ation 
in either the Gospels or Epistles. There is no appearance 
in those writings that their authors had any extraordi- 
nary gift, or that they were free from error or infirmity ; 
St. Paul hesitated in difficult cases, and more than once 
corrected himself ; one of the gospel historians does not 
profess to have been an eye-witness of the events describ- 
ed by him ; the evangelists do not agree as to the dwell- 
ing-place of Christ's parents, nor concerning the circum- 
stances of the crucifixion ; they differ about the woman 
who anointed our Lord's feet ; and the fulfillment of the 
Old Testament prophecy is not discernible in the New 
Testament history. To the question, What is inspira- 
tion ? there are two answers : first, That idea of Scrip- 
ture which we gather from the knowledge of it ; and, 
second, that any true doctrine of inspiration must con- 
form to all the ascertained facts of history or of science. 
The meaning of Scripture has nothing to do with the 
question of inspiration, for if the word " inspiration " 
were to become obsolete nothing vital would be lost, 
since it is but a term of yesterday. The solution of the 
various difficulties in the gospels is, that the tradition 
on which the first three are based was preserved orally, 
and, having been slowly put together, was written in 
three forms. The writers of the first three gospels were, 



hejstgstenbeeg's peotest. 



495 



therefore, not independent witnesses of the history it- 
self To interpret the Bible properly it must be treated 
as any other book, " in the same careful and impartial 
way that we ascertain the meaning of Sophocles or 
Plato. . . . Scripture, like other books, has one 
meaning, which is to be gathered from itself, without 
reference to the adaptations of fathers or divines, and 
without regard to a priori notions about its nature and 
origin. It is to be interpreted also with attention to 
the character of its authors, and the prevailing state of 
civilization and knowledge, with allowance for pecu- 
liarities of style and language, and modes of thought 
and figures of speech ; yet not without a sense, that, as 
we read, there grows upon us the witness of God in the 
word, anticipating in a rude and primitive age the truth 
that was to be, shining more and more unto the perfect 
day in the life of Christ, which again is reflected from 
different points of view in the teachings of his apostles." ^ 

The old methods of interpretation, Jowett concludes, 
must give place to this new and perfect system, for the 
growing state of science, the pressing wants of man, and 
his elevated reason demand it. If this liberal scheme be 
inaugurated we shall have a higher idea of truth than 
is supplied by the opinion of mankind in general, or by 
the voice of parties in a Church. 

It is interesting to notice the opinions of the evan- 
gelical theologians of Germany, who have long been 
accustomed to attacks upon Christianity, concerning 
these English critics. " The authors of the essays," 
says Hengstenberg, " have been trained in a German 
school. It is only the echo of German infidelity which 
we hear from the midst of the English church. They 
appear to us as parrots, with only this distinction, 

^ Essays and Heviews, p. 446. 



496 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



common among paiTots, that they imitate more or less 
perfectly. The treatise of Temple is in its scientific 
value about equal to an essay written by the pupils of 
the middle classes of our colleges. . . . The essay 
of Goodwin on the Mosaic cosmogony displays the 
naive assurance of one who receives the modern critical 
science from the second or tenth hand. The editor 
[Hengstenberg] asked the now deceased Andreas 
Wagner, a distinguished professor of natural sciences 
at the University of Munich, to subject this treatise to 
an examination from the stand-point of natural science. 
The offer was accepted, and the book given to him. 
But after some time it was returned with the remark, 
that he must take back his promise, as the book was 
beneath all criticism. . . . All these essays tend 
toward Atheism. Their subordinate value is seen in 
the inability of their authors to recognize their goal 
clearly, and in their want of courage to declare this 
knowledge. Only Baden Powell forms in this respect 
an exception. He uses several expressions, in which 
the grinning spectre makes his appearance almost un- 
disguisedly. He speaks not only sneeringly of the 
idea of a positive external revelation, which has hitherto 
formed the basis of all systems of the Christian faith ; 
he even raises himself against the ^ Architect of the 
world,' whom the old English Free Thinkers and Free 
Masons had not dared to attack." ^ 

The Essays and Reviews were not long in print 
before the periodicals called attention to their extraordi- 
nary character. Had they not been the Oxford Essays^ 
and written by well-known and influential men, they 
would probably have created but little interest, and 
passed away with the first or second edition. But 

* Bvangelische Kirchemeitungy Varwort, 1862. 1 



OPPOSITION TO THE " ESSAYS AND REVIEWS." 497 

their origin and associations gave them weight at the 
outset. The press soon began to teem with replies 
written fi'om every possible standpoint. Volumes of 
all sizes, from small pamphlets to bulky octavos, were 
spread abroad as an antidote to the poison. The op- 
position aroused is indicated by the fact that there 
were called forth by the JEssays and Reviews in Eng- 
land alone nearly four hundred publications. Hardly 
a newspaper, religious or secular, metropolitan or pro- 
vincial, stood aloof from the contest. Every seat of 
learning was agitated, the social classes were aroused, 
and the entire nation took part in the strife. Mean- 
while, the High Church and Low Church united in the 
cordial condemnation of the work. Even some of the 
First Broad Churchmen wrote heartily against its the- 
ology and influence. 

A remarkable feature of the whole controversy was 
the judicial prosecution of the essayists. Petitions nu- 
merously signed were presented to the bishops, praying 
that some action mio^ht be taken as^ainst them. One 
protest contained the signatures of nine thousand 
clergymen of the Established church ; and the bishops, 
without a single exception, took ground against the 
theological bearing of the Essays and Reviews, The 
Convocations of Canterbury and York, which possessed 
the full exercise of their leo:islative functions for the 
first time in one hundred and fifty years, declared 
against it, and pledged their influence to protect the 
church from the " pernicious doctrines and heretical 
tendencies of the book."" After much deliberation 
and counsel, Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson were sum- 
moned before the Court of Arches, the chief ecclesias- 
tical tribunal of England. Finally, June 21, 1864, 
decision was pronounced that they had departed from 



498 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



the teachings of tlie Thirty-Nine Articles on the inspira 
tion of Holy Scriptui^e, on the atonement, and on justi- 
fication. They were therefore suspended for one year, 
with the further penalty of costs and deprivation of 
their salary. At the ui^gent solicitation of friends, in 
addition to their own strong desire to push their de- 
fense as far as possible, theii^ case was brought before 
the Privy Council, a court of which the Queen is a 
member, and from which there can be no appeal. Con- 
trary to the general expectation, the decision of the 
Couii/ of Arches was reversed, and the essayists in ques- 
tion were restored to their functions. The reversal of 
the decision of the Court of Arches is couched in the 
following significant language : On the general ten- 
dency of the book called ^ Essays and Reviews,' and 
on the efi'ort or aim of the whole essay of Dr. Williams, 
or the whole essay of Mr. Wilson, we neither can, nor 
do, pronounce any opinion. On the short extracts be- 
fore us, our Judgment is that the charges are not 
proved. Their Lordships, therefore, will humbly recom- 
mend to Her Majesty that the sentences be reversed, and 
the reformed articles be rejected in like manner as the 
rest of the original articles ; but inasmuch as the Appel- 
lants have been obliged to come to this Court, their 
Lordships think it right that they should have the costs 
of this Appeal." ^ This action was regarded by every 
skeptical sympathizer as a great triumph, and has 
naturally given much encouragement to subsequent 

^ Ecclesiastical Judgements of the Privy Council, p. 289. Edited by 
Hon. G. C. Brodrick and the Rev. W. H. Freemantle. London, 1865. 
The members of the Queen's Privy Council were as follows : Earls Gran- 
ville and Lonsdale; Duke of Buccleugh; Marquis of Salisbury; Lords 
Westbury, Brougham, Cranworth, Wensleydale, St. Leonards, Chelms- 
ford, and Kindsdown; and Right Hons. Lushington, Bruce, Wigram, 
Ryan, Pollock, Romilly, Turner, Cockburn, Coleridge, Erie, and Wylde, 



BISHOP COLENSO. 



499 



Nationalistic tendencies and efforts botli within and 
without the 23ale of the English Church. 

The most outspoken and violent attacks of critical 
Rationalism in England are contained in the exegetical 
publications of Dr. John William Colenso, who, in 
1853, was consecrated Bishop of Natal, South Eastern 
Afiica. He had previously issued a series of mathe- 
matical works which obtained a wide circulation ; but 
his first book of scriptural criticism was the JEJpistle to 
the Romans^ newly translated and explained from a Mis- 
sionary Point of View. Having completed the New 
Testament and several parts of the Old, he was laboring 
assiduously on a translation of the Bible into the Zulu 
tongue, when his former doubts concerning the unhis- 
torical character of the Pentateuch revived with in- 
creased force. The intelligent native who was assisting 
him in his literary work asked, respecting the account 
of the flood, " Is all that true ? " This, with other in- 
quiries propounded to him by the Zulus, led him to a 
careful reexamination of the Mosaic record. 

The fruit of this additional study was the Pentateuch 
and Book of Joshua critically examined^ in Three Parts. 
The First Part appearing in 1862, when the contest 
over the Essays and Reviews was at fever-heat, the 
Bishop's work added excitement to all the combatants. 

Those who are intimately acquainted with the treat- 
ment of the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua by the 
most unsparing of the German Rationalists will at 
once see the resemblance between their views and those 
of Colenso. His aim is to overthrow the historical 
character of the early scriptural history by exposing 
the contradictions and impossibilities contained therein ; 
;and also to fix the real origin, age and authorship of 
the so-called narratives of Moses and Joshua. " I have 



500 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



arrived at the conviction," says he, " that the Pentateuch^ 
as a whole, cannot possibly have been Avritten by Moses, 
or by any one acquainted personally with the facts 
which it professes to describe, and, further, that the so- 
called Mosaic narrative, by whomsoever wTitten, and 
though imparting to us, as I fully believe it does, reve- 
lations of the Divine will and character, cannot be re- 
garded as historically true. . . . My reason for no 
longer receiving the Pentateuch as historically true, is 
not that I find insuperable difficulties with regard to the 
miracles or supernatural revelations of Almighty God 
recorded in it, but solely that I cannot, as a true man, 
consent any longer to shut my eyes to the absolute, pal- 
pable self-contradictions of the narrative. The notion of 
miraculous or supernatural interferences does not pre- 
sent to my own mind the difficulties which it seems to- 
present to some. I could believe and receive the mira- 
cles of Scripture heartily, if only they were authenti- 
cated by a veracious history; though, if that is not the 
case with the Pentateuch, any miracles, which rest on 
such an unstable support, must necessarily fall to the 
ground with it.-^ 

In proof of this assumption the author selects a 
large number of inexplicable portions from the narra- 
tives in question, and uses all the resources of his tal- 
ents and learning to prove them to be the fruit of 
" error, infirmity, passion, and ignorance." Hezron and 
Hanuel, he avers, were certainly born in the land of 
Canaan ; the whole assembly of Israel could not have 
gathered about the door of the tabernacle ; all Israel 
could not have been heard by Moses, for they numbered 
about two millions of people, according to the assumption 
of the biblical narrative. The Israelites could not have 

' Pentateuch and Book of Joshua. Part I., pp. 49, 51-52. Am. Edition. 



COLENSO ON THE PENTATEUCH. 



501 



dwelt in tents; they were not armed; the institution of 
the Passover, as described in the book of Exodus, was 
an impossibility, the Israelites could not take cattle 
through the barren country over which they passed; 
there is an incompatibility betw^een the supposed num- 
ber of Israel and the predominance of wild beasts in 
Palestine ; the number of the first-born is irreconcilable 
with the number of male adults ; and the number of 
the priests at the exodus cannot be harmonized with 
their duties, and with the provision made for them.^ 
These, with other difficulties chiefly of a numerical 
nature, constitute the basis on which the Bishop 
builds his objections to the historical character of Ex- 
odus as an integral part of the Pentateuch. 

In order to determine the true quality of the 
Book of Genesis, he brings out the old theory that the 
work had two writers, the Elohist and the Jehovist^ — 
so called because of their separate use of a term for 
Deity. The Elohist was the older, and his narrative 
was the ground-work which the Jehovist used and upon 
which he constructed his own additions.^ This Elohist 
account is defined to be a series of parables, based, 
as we have said, on legendary facts, though not historic 
cally true." ^ The Pentateuch existed originally not as 
five books, but as one ; and it is possible that its quin- 
tuple division was made in the time of Ezra. The 
writer of Chronicles was the same who wrote the books 
of Ezra and Nehemiah, probably a Levite living after 
the time of Nehemiah ; the Chronicles were therefore 
written only four hundred years before Christ ; but the 
Chronicler must not be relied on unless there is other 

^Pentateuch and Boole of Joshua, Part I., pp. 60, 78, 81, 94, 105, 118^ 
138, 141, 185. 

Ibid. Part II., p. 60. ' Ibid. p. 296. 



502 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 

evidence in support of liis narrative. Exodus could not 
have been written by Moses or an 3^ one of his contem- 
poraries. It is very probable that the Pentateuch gen- 
erally was composed in a later age than that of Moses 
or Joshua.^ Samuel was UK^st likely the author of the 
Elohistic legends, which he left at his death in an un- 
finished state, and which naturally fell into the hands 
of some one of his disciples of the School of the 
Prophets, such, for instance, as Nathan or Gad.' 

Yet the writer of the Pentateuch must not be re- 
proached for his errors as much as those who would at- 
tribute to him infallible accuracy. He had no idea 
that he was writing truth. ''But," says the Bishop, 
'' there is not the slightest reason to suppose that the first 
writer of the story in the Pentateuch ever professed to 
be i-ecoi'ding infallible truth, or even actual, historical 
trutli. He wrote certainly a narrative. But what indi- 
cations are there that he pu])lished it at large, even to 
the people of his own time, as a record of matter-of-fact, 
veracious history ? Why may not Samuel, like any 
other Head of an Institution, have composed this narra- 
tive for the instruction and improvement of his pupils, 
from which it would gradually find its way, no doubt, 
moi'e or less freely, among the people at large, without 
ever pretending that it was any other than an historical 
experiment, — an attempt to give them some account of 
the early annals of their tribes ? In later days, it is true, 
this ancient work of Sanmel's came to be regarded as 
infallibly divine. But was it so regarded in the writer's 
days, or in the ages immediately following? On the 
contrary, we find no sign of the Mosaic Law being ven- 
erated, obeyed, or even known, in many of its most 

^Pentateuch and Booh of Joshua^ Part IT., pp. 83, 84, 115. 
=^ Ibid. p. 160. 



PEOTEST AGAI:N"ST COLEIS^SO. 



503 



remarkable features, till a mucli later time in his- 
tory." ^ 

The excitement occasioned by the publication of 
these views of Colenso was second only to that pro- 
duced by the Essays and Reviews, There was a de- 
cided disposition on the part of the ecclesiastical author- 
ities to deal summarily with him, since he had been 
intrusted with the episcopal office, and sent as a mis- 
sionary to the heathen. Several of the Bishops early 
took ground against his destructive criticism, and re- 
fused to allow him to officiate within their dioceses. 
The Convocations of York and Canterbury united in 
condemnation of his work. There was a difference of 
opinion as to the best method of depriving him of his 
episcopal authority. In the dilemma it was resolved to 
appeal to him without any appearance of legal pressure ; 
whereupon the Bishops of England and Ireland, with 
but three exceptions, Drs. Thirlwall, Fitzgerald, and 
Griffin, addressed him a letter, in which he was re- 
quested to resign his office, since he must see, as well as 
they, the inconsistency of holding his position as Bishop 
and believing and publishing such views as were con- 
tained in his exegetical works. His reply was a positive 
refusal, coupled with the statement that he would soon 
return to his See in Africa, there to continue the dis- 
charge of his duties. The Episcopal Bench of England 
failing to eject him, he was tried and condemned before 
an Episcopal Synod, which assembled in Cape Town, 
Southern Africa, on November 27th, 1863. 

The charges against Colenso were : — his denial of the 
atonement ; belief in man's justification without any 
knowledge of Christ ; belief in natal regeneration ; disbe- 
lief in the endlessness of future punishment ; denial of 

* Pentateuch and Boole of Josliua. Part II., p. 292. 



504 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. ] 

the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and of the truth- 
fulness of what they profess to describe as facts ; de- 
nial of the divinity of our blessed Lord; and depraving, 
impugning, and bringing into disrepute the Book of 
Common Prayer. Having been adjudged guilty, he 
was deposed from his office as Bishop of Natal, and 
thenceforth prohibited from the exercise of all min- 
isterial functions within any part of the metropolitical 
province of Cape Town. Being absent in England at 
the time of the trial, Colenso was represented by Dr, 
Bleek, who protested against the legality of the pro- 
ceedings and the validity of the judgment, at the same 
time giving notice of his intention to appeal. But the 
Metropolitan of Cape Town refused to recognize any 
appeal, except to the Archbishop of Canterbury, which 
must be made within fifteen days from sentence. Im- 
mediately after the deposition, the Dean of Natal, the 
Archdeacon, the parochial clergy, and the church- 
wardens of the diocese, signed a declaration, by which 
they pledged themselves not to recognize Colenso any 
longer as their Bishop. 

Before Colenso was served with a copy of the 
decree against him, he issued a letter to his diocese, in 
which he denied the power claimed by the Metropoli- 
tan and the other bishops of Cape Town to depose him. 
He maintained that, of the nine charges brought against 
him, four had already been disposed of by the late judg- 
ment of the Privy Council in the case of the Essays a/)id 
Reviews, In the meanwhile, his friends at home collected 
a fund of more than two thousand pounds to enable him 
fco plead his cause before the English courts. The first 
proceeding in Great Britain commenced in 1863, be- 
fore the judicial committee of the Privy Council. The 
case was finally decided in Colenso's favor, the Lord 



COLENSO'S INFLUENCE. 



505 



Chancellor declaring the sentence pronounced by the 
Bishop of Cape Town null and void. 

The remaining parts of the Bishop's Commentary on 
the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua met with a tardy 
and cold reception. The first two parts, however, 
created an excitement which was not confined to Chris- 
tian lands. Even a Mussulman addressed a letter from - 
the Cape of Good Hope to a Turkish paper at Constan- 
tinople, in which he gave an account of the Chris- 
tians in that colony. "Their priests," he writes, "all 
advocate different creeds ; and as to their bishops, one 
Colenso actually writes books against his own I'eligion." 
The Buddhists of India soon made free use of his works 
in their controversies with the missionaries from Chris- 
tian lands. Thus the herald of the cross of Christ in 
heathen nations must encounter not only the super- 
stition and prejudices of paganism, but the infidelity - 
exported from his own home, where for centuries the 
battles of the truth have been fought and won. 

Great Britain has produced a number of writers 
who have followed in the footsteps of German Ration- 
alistic critics ; but defenders of the Scriptures from 
their attacks have been found in equal number and 
ability. Thomas Kelly Che^me may be regarded as a 
leader among the destructive critics, and Samuel Rolles 
Driver as one of a more moderate type. William 
Eobertson Smith was removed in 1881 from his pro- 
fessorship in the Free Church College at Aberdeen 
because of his views on the Old Testament, largely ' 
derived from Wellhausen and published in the En- 
eydopcedia Britannica. Archibald Henry Sayce, who 
has by some been classed with the radical wing of 
criticism, has in various strong expressions declared 
his aversion to the assumptions of those who read into 



506 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISM. 



the Old Testameiit records their own notions and 
guesses at origins, additions, and compilations without 
giving weight to the honesty and trustworthiness ot 
the traditional vieAvs. He has shown in his Fresh 
Light from the Aiicient Monuments (1883) that what 
some men please to call imhistorical figments of pop- 
ular tradition " are historical verities. 

Alfred Edersheim, in his Jesus the Messiah (1883) 
and Prophecy and History in Relation to the Messiah 
(Warburton Lectures, 1880-1884), has given a fair and 
beautiful statement of the position of the progressive- 
conservative school of biblical interpretation which 
welcomes all genuine light shed on tlie Scriptui'es by 
actually demonstrated facts, while holding tenaciously 
and firmly to the unshaken foundations of the faith. 
He points out the way for the safe and ready accep- 
tance of the true in every new field of investigation, 
without discarding any of that truth which has long 
been possessed. Brooke Foss Westcott (died July, 
1901) in his numerous works furnishes a fine example 
of a progressive scholarship without the destructive 
animus of the negative critics. 

Max Mliller in his earlier years, while writing his 
Origin of Iteligions, held to the general parity of all 
religions in their genesis from nature-worship ; but, as 
a result of his later investigations in Comparative Re- 
ligion, his appreciation of Christianity as superior to 
the ethnic faiths led him to say: "Let us teach Hindu, 
Buddhist, Mohammedan, that there is only one Sacred 
Book of the East that can be their mainstay in that 
awful hour when they pass alone into the unseen 
world. It is the Sacred Book which contains that 
faithful saying worthy to be received by all: * Christ 
J esus came into the world to save sinners.' " 



CHAPTER XXII. 



ENGLAND CONTINUED: SUKVEY OF CHURCH PARTIES. 

The Churcli of England has always been proud of 
the outward form of unity. Her rigid view of the sin 
of schism has induced her to submit to great elasticity 
of opinion and teaching rather than incur the traditional 
disgrace of open division. But on this very account 
she has never been free from internal strife. In every- 
thing but in name she has been for centuries not one 
church, but several. Her entire history discloses two 
tendencies balancing each other, and for the most 
part reacting to great advantage. The Sacramentalist 
party represents Romanizing tendencies, and is thor- 
oughly devoted to " the sacramental services and the 
offices of the church, especially as performed according 
to the rubric." The Evangelical party is less formal, 
is in harmony with the Articles, aims to keep up 
with the accumulating religious wants of society, and 
lays stress upon the practical evidences of Christian 
life. Under these two standards .mav be ranked all 
those schools within the pale of the Church which 
have been growing into prominence since the closing 
years of the eighteenth century. We will only speak 
of the most influential parties, remembering, however, 
that each of them is again subdivided into various 
sections. 



508 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



The Low Church. Witliin a sliort lime after the 
Church of England gave signs of religious awakening 
in consequence of the rise of the Wesleyan movement, 
the triumph of evangelical tendencies was complete. 
" In less than twenty years," says Conybeare, " the 
original ])attle-field was won, and the enemy may be 
said to have surrendered at discretion. Thenceforward, 
scarcely a clergyman was to be found in England who 
[)reached against the doctrines of the creed. The faith 
of the church was restored to the level of her formu- 
laries." ^ The revival was so thorough that it gave rise 
to a zealous class which was called by its fi'iends the 
Evangelical Party, hut hy its enemies the Low Church. ^ 

The Low Church had its seat at Cambridge, and \ 
was conducted by vigorous theologians, who were 
encouraged and aided by highly-respected and lead- 
ing laymen. Attaching new importance to the neg- , 
lected doctrines, their principal themes were " the >! 
universal necessity of conversion," "justification by 
faith," and " the sole authority of Scripture as the rule 
of faith." They were worthy successors of the old 
Evangelical party, represented by Milner, Martyn, and 
Wilberforce. Through their agency there arose in the 
popular mind a dislike of ecclesiastical landmarks, the 
state church fell into disrepute, the broadest catholicity 
received hearty support, and personal piety was the 
acknowledged test of true religion. In 1828 Lord Rus- 
sell, the leader of the Reform party, effected the abro- ' t 
gation of the Test Act, — a law which required all i 
officers, civil and military, to receive the sacrament 
according to the usage of the Established church, and 
to take an oath against transubstantiation within six 
months after their entrance into office. The repeal 

* E$8ay8 Ecclesiastical and Social^ pp. 62-63. 

fl 



INFLUENCE OF THE LOW CHUHCH. 



509 



immediately placed Dissenters and Catholics upon the 
same footing witli members of tlie Established church, 
and was in itself sufficient to provoke opposition on the 
part of all who had not united in the evangelical move- 
ment. But the antagonism became still more decided 
when Parliament passed the Irish Church Property- 
Act, in 1833, in spite of the determined remonstrances 
of the bishops. One half of the Irish bishoprics were 
thereby abrogated. Parliament assuming ecclesiastical 
authority. The people supported the Parliament, and 
in some instances public indignation was hurled at the 
])ishops themselves. 

The Low Church has always been on the side of 
popular reform. Not forgetful of its lineal descent from 
that evangelical sj^irit which animated Wilberforce, 
Stephen, Thornton, and Buxton, in their philanthropic 
labors, it has sought out the population of the fac- 
tories and mines of England, and addressed itself to 
the relief of their cramped and stifled inmates. It has 
reorganized Ragged-Schools, and endeavored to reach 
all the suffering classes of the kingdom. Neither has 
it been found unmindful of the wants of the heathen 
world, for no sooner did the Low Church commence 
its public career than it founded the Church Mission- 
ary Society, which has established over two hundred 
aod fifty missionary stations, sustains seven hundred 
and twenty missionaries, includes about twenty thou- 
sand members, and numbers about two hundred and 
fifty thousand converts. These labors have been 
abundantly successful, for, besides the converted towns 
on the coast of Africa, " whole districts of Southern 
India have embraced the faith ; and the native popula- 
tion of New Zealand (spread over a territory as large 
as England) has been reclaimed from cannibalism 
84 



510 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



and added to the church." The same party was chiefly 
instrumental in establishing the British and Foreign 1 
Bible Society, which has translated the Scriptures into i 
one hundred and fifty languages, and distributes over j 
two millions of copies annually. 

The Lo^v Church party was the first to tell England 
that her population had far outgrown her places of 
worship, and it accordingly devised means to remedy 
the evil. Archbishop Sumner founded the first Diocesan | 
Church Building Society, in 1828 ; and after becoming ' 
Bishop of Chester consecrated more than two hun- 
dred new churches. Mr. Simeon of Cambridge had 
previously set the example of caring for the unchurched j 
population by his personal labors and the outlay of hi» i 
large private fortune. His name is now like ointment 
poured forth " among the inhabitants of Bath, Clifton,. 
Bradford, and other places. The Pastoral Aid Society 
was founded in 183G, and by its lay and clerical em- 
ployees, is now ministering to the spiritual wants of over 
three millions of souls. The Low Churchmen have alsa 
established, in needy localities, Sunday Schools, Infant 
Schools, Lending Libraries, Benefit Societies, Clothing 
Clubs, and Circles of Scripture Readers. From the 
ranks of this party have arisen devout and zealous- 
preachers, who, without any great natural endowments, 
have given their hearts to the work of saving souls, 
Hamilton Forsyth, Spencer Thornton, and Henry Fox, 
— the follower of Henry Martyn to Southern India, — 
are names which will ever adorn the history of the 
Church of England.^ 

At the present time the Low Church is leading the 
van within the Establishment, in aU those movements 
which are most truly evangelical. It is seeking 

^ Conybeare, Essays Ecclesiastical and Social, pp. 65-71. 



LOW CHUECH PAETEES. 



511 



out the abandoned and homeless wretches in the 
darkest sinks of London, reading the Bible to them, 
clothing, finding work, and training them to self-respect. 
Some of its clergy are among the most gifted and 
influential in Great Britain, whether at the editor's 
table, in the pulpit, or on the platform. The lofty po- 
sition they have lately taken against the inroads of Ra- 
tionalism and Ritualism entitles them to the thanks and 
admiration of Christendom. 

Within the Low Church there are two subdivisions. 
The first is the Recordite party, so called from its organ. 
It intensifies the doctrines of the Low Church ; on 
justification by faith it builds its view of the worth- 
lessness of morality ; on conversion by grace its pre- 
destinarian fatalism ; and on the supremacy of Scrip- 
cure its dogma of verbal inspiration. It holds strong 
1)iblical views on the sanctity of the Sabbath, and 
both by the pulpit and the press opposes the secu- 
larization of the Lord's day. The other party is sneer- 
Lngly called the " Low and Slow," and corresponds with 
a similar faction within the High Church which en- 
joys the sobriquet of the " High and Dry." 

After the evangelical movement had fully taken 
root there arose an antagonistic tendency ; it was the 
old Sacrament alist party re-asserting itself. Oxford 
arrayed itself against Cambridge. The views of Laud 
had always found favor in the former seat of learning, 
and their adherents felt that the time had now come for 
their vigorous revival. They directed their opposition 
equally against Parliamentary usurpation and evangeli- 
cal liberalism. The centre of the counter-movement 
was Oriel College, which, under Whately, Hampden, 
and Thomas Arnold, was already celebrated for its new 
spirit of free scientific inquiry. Keble, Pusey, Froude, 



512 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



and J. H. Newman, were here associated either as fel- 
lows or students. Froude recognized the truth of the 
saying of Vincentius : ^' Quod semper, quod uhique, quod 
ah omnibus creditum est^ He rose above his friends 
as leader of the whole movement. 

The Conference which convened at Hadley was the 
first organized demonstration against the evangelical 
portion of the Low Church. Its initiative act was the 
adoption of a catechism which contained the views of the 
High Chui'chmen, and was the first issue of the celebrated 
series of Tracts which gave to the new movement the 
name of Tractarianism. It was published in 1833, and 
the last of the series, the ninetieth, appeared seven years 
afterward. ISTewman and Pusev were the chief writers. 
Pusey preached a sermon in 1843 which avowed, with 
only slight modifications, the doctrine of transubstantia- 
tion ; in consequence of which he was deposed from 
preaching to the university for the space of two years. 
The Romish church received flattering eulogy from all 
the High Churchmen or Tractarians. It was represented 
by them as the embodiment of all that was grand, impos- 
ing, and sound in art, poetry, or theology. When New- 
man went over to its fold, Pusey said of him : " He has 
been called to labor in another part of the Lord's vine- 
yard."' The High Church went so far in its opposition 
to the Low that many attached to the former felt more 
attracted to Roman Catholicism than to any form of 
Protestantism. Accordingly, at the close of 1846, one 
hundred and fifty clergymen and distinguished laymen 
had gone over to Popery. 

The doctrines of the High Church may be di- 
vided into two classes : the material, or justification 
by sacraments ; and the formal, or the authority of the 
church. 



OPINTONS OF THE HIGH CHTJECH. 



513 



While it declares that we are justified by faith, it 
also holds that we are judged by works. Men are con- 
verted by grace, but Christians are regenerated by 
baptism. The Scriptures are supreme authority, but 
the church hath authority in controversies of faith," 
by virtue of its apostolic descent. The watchwords 
of the High Church are, therefore, judgment by works; 
baptismal regeneration ; church authority ; and apos- 
tolical succession. Faith, it claims, does not justify us 
in and of itself, but simply brings us to God, who then 
justifies us by his free grace. Baptism is regeneration; 
in the New Testament the new birth is always con- 
nected with it ; we are not born of faith, or of love, or 
of prayer, but by water and the Spirit. All Tracta- 
rians believe in the real presence of Christ, and only 
differ as to the mode in which he is present. The con« 
secrated elements become really the body and blood of 
Christ by virtue of the consecrating word, though the 
change takes place in a spiritual and inexpressible way. 
Christ is a kind Saviour to those who partake of the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper worthily, but a harsh 
judge to those who do it unworthily. 

High Churchmen hold that the Church is a saving 
institution founded by Christ, and continued by apostol- 
ical succession. It is the only mediator of salvation in 
Christ in so far as it is the only dispenser of the means 
of grace, the only protectress and witness of the truth, 
and the highest authority in matters of faith and practice. 
There are three tests of the true Church ; first, apostoli- 
city, or the divine origin of the Church and its succession 
of apostles ; second, catholicity, or the truth in matters 
of instruction and life communicated through the suc- 
cession of the apostles, the truth in matters of faith 
and life as interpreted by Scripture and tradition ; and, 



514 



HISTOKY OF KATIONALISM. 



third, autonomy, or tlie absolute independence and su- 
preme authority of the Church in faith and practice. 

Apostolical succession Avas the first dogma in which 
all High Churchmen united. Connected with this 
opinion is the idea that the priesthood is the only medi- 
atorial office between Christ and the congregation. 
The bishops are the spiritual sons of the apostles, and 
should be respected for their office' sake ; Christ is the 
Mediator above, but his servant, the bishop, is his 
image on earth.^ The Church has authority to forgive 
sins by the new birth, and to bring souls from hell to 
heaven.^ Tradition must be respected not less than the 
Bible itself; the Old and New Testaments are the 
fountain of the doctrines, and the catholic fathers the 
channel through which they flow down to us.^ The 
Bible must be explained, not by individual opinion, but 
by the church ; for the Church is its rightful interpreter. 

It must be said, in justice to the High Church, that 
while it attaches great weight to these views it does not 
discard those really important. It does not overlook the 
doctrines maintaiued by the majority of evangelical 
Christians. The moderate members of this party, espe- 
cially, do not hold them as ^' the basis of their system, but 
only as secondary and ornamental details. Even against 
Dissenters they are not rigidly enforced. The heredi- 
tary non-conformist is not excluded from salvation. 
Foreign Protestants are even owned as brethren, though 
a mild regret is expressed that they lack the blessing 
of an authorized church government. Apostolical suc- 
cession is not practically made essential to the being of 
a church, but rathei' cherished as a dignified and an- 
cient pedigree, connecting our English episcopate with 



* Tract No. 10. ' Sewel. 

^ Pusey, Preface to ISth vol. Library of Church Fathers, 



USEFULNESS OF THE HIGH CHURCH. 



515 



primitive antiquity, and binding tlie present to the past 
by a chain of filial piety. In the same hands, church 
authority is reduced to little more than a claim to that 
deference which is due from the ignorant to the learned, 
from the taught to the teacher." ^ 

Of the general service rendered by the High 
Churchmen, the same writer says, Their system gives 
freer scope to the feelings of reverence, awe, and beauty 
than that of their opponents. They endeavor, and 
often successfully, to enlist these feelings in the service 
of piety. Music, painting, and architecture, they con- 
secrate as the handmaids of religion. Thus they at- 
tract an order of men chiefly found among the most 
cultivated classes, whose hearts must be reached through 
their imagination rather than their understanding. . . 
In the same spirit the writers of this party have con- 
tributed to the religious literature of the day many ad- 
mirable works which under the guise of fiction teach 
the purest Christianity, and exemplify its bearing in 
every detail of common life. To the training of child- 
hood especially they have rendered most valuable aid, 
by thus embodying the precepts of the Gospel. But 
we need not do more than allude to works so universally 
known and valued as those of Miss Sewell, Mr. Adams, 
and Bishop Wilberforce. Again the revival of the 
Higli Church party has efi*ected an important improve- 
ment among the clergy. Many of these were prejudiced 
by hereditary dislike against the doctrines and the per- 
sons of the Evangelicals, and by this prejudice were re- 
pelled from religion. But under the name of ortho- 
doxy and the banner of High Church, they have wil- 
lingly received truth against which, had it come to them 
in another shape, they would have closed their ears and 

' Conjbeare, Essays Ecclesiastical amd Social^ p. 106. 



516 HISTOEY OF EATIOKAUSM. 

hearts. A better spirit has thus been breathed into 
hundreds who but for this new movement wouhi have 
remained as their fathers were before them, mere Nim- 
rods, Ramrods, or Fishing-rods." ' 

Of all the men engaged in the Tractarian enterprise 
there was no one in whose religious and personal history 
a deeper public interest concentrated than in John 
Henry Newman. His ardent espousal of the High 
Church cause collected many friends about him at the 
same time that it organized numerous enemies. But he 
did not inquire concerning the number of his friends or 
foes, for he valued sincerity higher than favor or opposi- 
tion. His previous history was not without incident. 
Thirteen years before the Tracts for the Times were 
published, he had been engaged in a controversy con- 
cerning baptismal regeneration, in which he defended 
the evangelical side.^ Subject to various inner conflicts, 
and greatly influenced by the party-spirit which ran 
high, he finally entered the communion of the Roman 
Catholic Church. His view of the development of Chris- 
tian doctrine was very favorable to his adopted faith. 
Development can be applied to anything which has real 
vital power ; it is the key that unlocks the mystery of 
all growth ; any philosophy or policy, Christianity in- 
cluded, requires time for its comprehension and perfec- 
tion. The highest truths of inspiration needed only the 
longer time and deeper thought for their full elucida- 
tion, for perfection can be reached only by trials and 
sore conflicts. A philosophy or sect is purer and 
stronger when its channel has grown deep and broad 
by the flow of time. Its vital element needs disengage- 
ment from that which is foreign and temporary, and its 

* Essays Ecclesiastical and Social^ pp. 106-108. 
' National Beview, Oct., 1856, 



FATHER ISTEWMAN AND KINGSLEY. 



517 



beginning is no measure of its capabilities or scope. At 
first no one knows what it is or what it is worth, since 
it seems in suspense which way to go ; but notwithstand- 
ing this, it strikes out and develops all its hidden world 
of force. Surrounding things change, but these changes 
only contribute to its development. Here below, to 
live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed 
often. This is all true of Christianity; the lapse of 
years, instead of injuring it, has only brought out its 
power. ^ 

These hints furnish a specimen of the ideal robe in 
which Father Newman clothes Romanism. But it will 
take a stronger intellect than his to show any harmony 
between his theory of development and the history of 
the papacy. He once more assumed the pen of the con- 
troversialist. In the January number of MacmillarHs 
Magazine^ 1864, Kingsley, in a review of Fronde's His- 
tory of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, said, " Truth for 
its own sake has never been a virtue with the Eoman 
clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need not be, 
and, on the whole, ought not to be ; that cunning is the 
weapon which Heaven has given to the saints where- 
with to withstand the brute man's force of the wicked 
world, which marries and is given in marriage." The 
venerable Father being thus assailed gave vent to his 
indignation by a defense of his life, under the title of 
Apologia Pro Vita Sua, It abounds in rare touches 
of satire ; while Kingsley, in his reply, indicates ex- 
citement and bitterness. 

The younger brother, Francis William Newman, led 
a «ad and changeful life. It had many features in 
common with Blanco White, both of whom betray the 
destructive absence of a positive evangelical faith. In 

^ Bevelopment of Christian Doctrine. Second Edition. London, 1846, 



518 HISTORY OF RATIOIfALISM. 

some skeptics there is a strength of will which gives a 
successful appearance to their cause in spite of all their 
doubts ; but when the will is subjected to the domina- 
tion of opinion ; when religion, whether true or false, is 
not an appendage but the principle of life, the power 
of mere sentiment is fully manifested. The younger 
Newman is an illustration of the position in which one 
is left when he throws himself into the arms of a false 
creed. 

He reveals his inner life in the Phases of Faiih^ 
one of the most touching pieces of biography in the 
realm of literature. While a student at Oxford, he be- 
came enamored with the " Oriel heresy about Sunday." 
One by one the views of the standard authorities of 
the Church lost their bold upon him, and he imbibed 
the opinion that the Old Testament is not really the 
rule of life, according to the Pauline idea; infant bap- 
tism is an excrescence of a post-apostolic age, and Wall's 
attempt to trace it to the Apostles a decided failure ; 
Episcopacy has been so contemptibly represented by 
incumbents, some of whom opposed the Missionary and 
Bible Societies, that it is not entitled to respect; and 
the Church Fathers are greatly overrated, Clement 
alone being respectable. 

Unable to find any theological resting-place, New- 
man went as a quasi-missionary to Bagdad. He re- 
turned to Oxford and gave himself up to his increasing 
doubts. Finally, becoming a Unitarian, the Scriptures 
presented new difficulties; Christianity had been too 
much praised and flattered ; and has the credit of doing 
a great deal which it has had no share in effecting. The 
Bible had not been found able to cope with fresh evils ; 
and Romanism became corrupt and vicious with that 
book in the hands of the priesthood. But dissatisfied as 



FIRST BROAD CHURCH. 



519 



Xewman was with his times, he took a cheerful L)ok 
upon the future. " The age is ripe," he says, " for some- 
thing better, for a religion which shall combine the ten- 
derness, humility, and disinterestedness which are the 
glory of the present Christianity, with that activity of 
intellect, untiring pursuit of truth, and strict adherence 
to impartial principle which the schools of modern 
science embody. When a spiritual church has its senses 
exercised to discern good and evil, judges of right and 
wrong by an inw^ard power, proves all things, and holds 
fast that which is good, fears no truth, but rejoices in 
being corrected, intellectually as well as morally, it will 
not be liable to ' be carried to and fro ' by shifting 
wind of doctrine. It will indeed have movement, 
namely, a steady onward one, as the schools of science 
have had since they left off to dogmatize, and ap- 
proached God's world as learners ; but it will lay aside 
disputes of words, eternal vacillations, mutual ill-will 
and dread of new light, and will be able, without hy- 
pocrisy, to proclaim ' peace on earth and good will to- 
ward men,' even toward those who reject its beliefs 
and sentiments concerning God and his glory." ^ 

The First Broad Chuech. The division of the 
Broad Church into two parties was one of degrees in 
accepting Rationalism. The First Broad Church corre- 
sponds in the main with philosophical Rationalism. It 
commenced with Coleridge, was interpreted principally 
by Hare, was defended by the chaste and vigorous 
pen of Arnold, and later represented by Maurice, 
Kingsley, and Stanley. It cannot be said to have a 
distinct creed. Its members being attached to the 
Established Church, they are distinguished pecul- 
iarly for their method of interpretation of the ar- 

' Phases of Faitli, pp. 233, 234. American Edition. 



620 mSTOEY OF EATIONALISM. 

tides of faitli. The Broad Church teachers give us 
readings of each dogma of the Atonement and Future 
Punisliment." ^ They avow the main doctrines of the 
Gospel, but in such a modified sense that, they say, the 
same were held virtually by all Christians in every age ; 
by Loyola and Xavier, not less than by Latimer and 
Ridley. They conceive the essence of Popery to con- 
sist, not in points of metaphysical theology, but in the 
ascription of magic virtue to outward acts. All who be- 
lieve the Scriptures are, in their opinion, members of the 
household of faith. Salvation does not depend upon the 
ritual but upon the life ; the fruits of the Spirit are the 
sole criteria of the Spirit's presence. They give prom- 
inence to the idea of the visible Church when they hold 
the Church to be a Society divinely instituted for the 
purpose of manifesting God's presence, and bearing wit- 
ness to his attributes, by their reflection in its ordi- 
nances and in its members. If its ideal were fully em- 
bodied in its actual constitution " it v^ould remind us 
daily of God, and work upon the habits of our life as 
insensibly as the air we breathe.^ For this end, it would 
revive " daily services, frequent communions, memorials 
of our Christian calling, presented to our notice in 
crosses and wayside oratories ; commemorations to holy 
men of all times and countries ; religious orders, espe- 
cially of women, of different kinds and under different 
rules, delivered only from the snare and sin of per- 
petual vows." ^ 

The special defender of these views of the visible 
Church, Dr. Thomas Arnold, of Rugby, was a man 
of great industry, profound erudition, and extraor- 

^ Miss Cobbe, Broken Lights^ p. 63. London Edition. 
^ Arnold, Serraom, vol. iv, p. 307. 
^ Ibid. Introduction, p. 56. 



aenold's opinions. 



521 



dinary power and tact in the management of youth. 
His sermons, delivered to his pupils at Kugby, were 
ehort, and usually written just before delivery in the 
school-chapel on Sabbath afternoons.^ He interested 
himself in all questions of reform, education, politics, 
and literature. But he is best known as one of the 
leaders of the Broad Church, and in this light his 
theological opinions may be considered a fair sam- 
ple of the theology adopted by that party in its earlier 
and purer days. With him, inspiration is not equivalent 
to a communication of the divine perfections. Paul ex- 
pected the world would come to an end in the genera- 
tion then existing. The Scripture narratives are not 
only about divine things, but are themselves divinely 
framed and superintended. Inspiration does not raise 
a man above his own time, nor make him, even in re- 
spect to that which he utters when inspired, perfect in 
goodness and wisdom ; but it so overrules his language 
that it shall contain a meaning more than his own mind 
was conscious of, and thus give to it a character of di- 
vinity, and a power of perpetual application.^ 

According to Arnold, Christ was the sum of the 
Bible, and the centre of all truth. We cannot come 
to God directly ; Christ is to us in place of God ; and 
he is God, for to hold the contrary would be idola- 
try. Christ suffered for the Church, not only as a 
man may suffer for man by being involved in evils 
through the fault of another, and by his example 
awakening in others a spirit of like patience and self- 
devotion, but in a higher and more complete sense, as 

* Bibliotheca Sacra. Jan. 1858. An excellent summary of the opin- 
ions of Dr. Arnold. 

' Stanley, Life and Correspondence of Arnold, American Edition, p. 
185. 



522 



mSTOEY OF KATIOISTALISM. 



suffering for them, the just for the unjust, that they, for 
his sake, should be regarded by God as innocent. In a 
deep sense of moral evil, more, perhaps, than in any- 
thins: else, a savins: knowledc^e of God abides. Sin 
must not be lightly considered. Christ's death shows 
it to be an exceeding evil; and the actions of whole 
days and weeks, passed as they are by too many in 
utter carelessness, are nothing but one mass of sin ; and 
no one thing in them has been sanctified by the thought 
of God or of Christ. 

The penalty of sin, according to Arnold, is one of 
the revelations of Scripture which men are least inclined 
to hear. It will be true of every one of us, that, unless 
we turn to Christ, it had been better that we were never 
born. If we fail of the grace of God there is reserved 
for us an indescri})able misery. Conversion is the de- 
velopment of Christian life. It is growth. We must 
be changed during the three score and ten years of our 
life, not in the twinkling of an eye, but through a long 
period of prayer and watchfulness, laboring slowly and 
with difiiculty to get rid of our evil nature.^ By con- 
stant repentance and faith we ripen for heaven. Justifi- 
cation by faith is a reliance on what God has done 
for us ; faith in Christ is not only faith in his having 
died for us, but in him as our present Saviour by his 
Hfe. It is throwing ourselves upon him in all things, 
as our Eedeemer, Saviour, Head, of whom we are mem- 
bers, and desiring our life only for Him. Our depend- 
ence in Christ is not once only, but perpetual. 

Arnold attached paramount importance to a proper 
understanding of the Church and its relations to the 
State. He held that the work of a Christian Church 
and State is absolutely one and the same, and that the 

^ Interpretation of Scripture^ p. 493. 



DEAN STANLEY. 



52a 



full development of the former in its perfect form as 
the Kingdom of God will be an effectual means for 
the removal of all evil and the promotion of good. 
There can be no perfect Church or State without their 
blending into one.^ The Church, during her imperfect 
state, is deficient in power; the State, in the like condi- 
tion is deficient in knowledge ; one judges amiss of man's 
highest happiness, the other discerns it truly, but has 
not the power on a large scale to attain it. But when 
blended into one, the power and knowledge become 
happily united ; the Church has become sovereign, and 
the State has become Christian.^ The Church has its 
living and redeemed members ; it may have those who 
are craving to be admitted within its shelter, being 
convinced that God is in it of a truth ; but beyond 
these, he who is not with it is against it.^ 

In intimate connection with Arnold stands the name 
of his friend and biographer, Arthur P. Stanley. Dean 
of Westminster, one of the most finished writers of 
England. Four stately volumes on the Eastern and 
Jeivish Oliiivclies have given him a standing occupied by 
few theologians in the old or the new world. His style 
is gorgeous and enchanting, and his Rationalistic ten- 
dencies so subdued and covert that few would suspect 
him of sympathy with the Broad Church theology 
of the last half century. In his work on Sinai and 
Palestine he aimed to delineate the outward events of 
the Old and New Testament in such a way that they 
should come home with a new power to those who, 
by long familiarity, had almost ceased to regard them 
as historical truth ; and so to bring out their inward 

* Stanley, Life and Correspondence^ pp. 341, 367. 

' Fragment on the Churchy p. 226. 

^ Christian Life^ its Course^ etc., p. 358. 



524 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



spirit that the more complete realization of their out- 
ward form should not degrade but exalt the faith of 
which they are the vehicle. But in subsequent works 
Dean Stanley clearly departed from an evangelical 
j^ositlon, and put himself in open sympathy with the 
Broad Church. This tendency w^as foreshadowed in 
his History of the Jeioish Church. He describes mir- 
acles as one who prefers to omit, rather than state, 
his real objections to their reception. He seems to be- 
lieve in Israel as an inspired people, more than in the 
Old Testament as a plenarily inspired book. He allows 
searching criticism into the Hebrew text, and does not 
seem disturbed by evidences of errors, contradictions, 
and phantasy. He does not know whether the Israel- 
ites were in Egypt two hundred and fifteen, four hun- 
dred and thirty, or one thousand years, — thus leaving 
an important question unsettled. Neither does he de- 
cide, with or against Colenso, whether the number of 
armed Israelites who left Egypt was six hundred or six 
hundred thousand men. He implies that monothe- 
ism was unknown before Abraham, and that the name 
Jehovah was not known to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. 
He cannot tell how the Israelites were supported in 
their journeying ; and ascribes the priesthood to an 
Egyptian origin. If we only admit the above arith- 
metical errors, and give up the Mosaic authorship of 
the Pentateuch, he thinks we should remove at one 
stroke some of the main difficulties of the Mosaic nar- 
rative.^ 

But Stanley exposed his Broad Church sympa- 
thies more fully in a review article than in any formal 
volume.^ It is a discussion of the judicial proceedings 

^ American Theological Review^ July, 1863. 
^ Edinburgh Review, July, 1864. 



Stanley's vlews. 



525 



in connection witli two authors of the Essays and Re- 
views. His theme permits a wide range, and he there- 
fore dwells at length upon the whole question of min- 
isterial teaching. He considers the final acquittal of 
the essayists one of the most gratifying events of the 
day. According to him, the questions raised by the 
work are, with few exceptions, of a kind altogether be- 
side and beyond the range over which the formularies 
of the Church extend. No passage in any of the five 
clerical essayists contradicts any of the formularies of 
the Church in a degree at all comparable to the direct 
collision which exists between the High Church party 
and the Articles, or the Low Church party and the 
Prayer-Book ; on the points debated in the JEssays and 
He-views the Articles and Prayer- Book are alike silent. 
Stanley rejoices that of the thirty-two charges presented 
against Mr. "Wilson and Dr. Williams all were dismissed 
but five, and that for these "there was no heavier pen- 
alty than a year's suspension." He is in ecstacy that the 
judgment in the case of these two men has established 
the legal position of those who have always claimed the 
right of free inquiry and latitude of opinion equally for 
themselves and for both the other sections of the 
Church. By the issue of the litigation, he claims that 
great victories have been won, that henceforth ample 
freedom is left to all detailed criticism of the Sacred 
Text, so long as the canonicity of no canonical book is 
denied, and that the questions whether there be " one 
Isaiah or two, two Zechariahs or three, who wrote the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, and who wrote the Pentateuch, 
whether Job and Josiah be historical or parabolical, 
whether the Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah or the Second 
Psalm be directly or indirectly prophetic, what are the 
precise limits of the natui'al and practical, what is the 

3o 



526 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



weight of internal and external evidence, whether the 
Apocalypse refers to the Emperor Nero or to the Pope 
of Rome ; are to be settled according to the individual 
opinion of every clergyman of the Established Church." 
Stanley sneers at the Declaration of the Oxford Com- 
mittee sent to every clergyman of England and Ire- 
land, " with an adjuration, for the love of God and 
out of duty to the souls of men, to sign it." That 
Declaration was a protest against the acquittal of the 
Essayists ; and Stanley rejoices over the fact, that, 
though ^' every influence was used to get signatures to 
it, and was so concealed as to enlist the support of 
High and Low Church parties," the result was the sig- 
nature of only one third of the London clergy, nine 
Professors at Oxford and one at Cambrid2:e, eicfht out 
of the thirty English deans, two of the Head Mas- 
ter of the Puljlic Schools, and only six out of the 
fifty clerical contributors to Smith's Dictionary of the 
Bible; that more than one half of the rural clergy 
stood altogether aloof from the document ; and that 
when it was presented at Lambeth only four of the 
twenty-eight Bishops loaned their countenance to its 
formal reception. Stanley looks into the future and 
sees permanent blessings bestowed upon the country by 
the " timely decision of the highest Court of Appeal " 
that it has "no jurisdiction or authority to settle mat 
ters of faith, or to determine what ought in any parties 
ular to be the doctrine of the Church of England, since 
its duty extends only to the consideration of that . 
which is by law established to be the doctrine of the 
Church of England, upon the true and legal construc- 
tion of her Articles and formularies." He is also pleased 
that the Supreme Court of Appeal has refused to pledge 
itself and the Church to any popular theory of the mode 



ENDLFFERENCE OF FIEST BROAD CHURCH. 527 

of justification or of tlie future punishment of tlie wick- 
ed ; and that it now stands declared that it is no doc- 
trine of the Church of England that " every part of the 
Bible is inspired, or is the word of God." The Dean 
also looks with complacency upon what he declares 
to be a fact, and which was startling to hear; that 
"the belief in endless punishment is altogether fluc- 
tuating, or else expresses itself in forms wholly unten- 
able . . . that the doctrine of endless torments, if 
held, is not practically taught by the vast majority of 
the clergymen of England." 

The First Broad Church would not accept entirely 
the theology contained in the Essays and Reviews, and 
complained of them that they are " almost entirely nega- 
tive ; hinting at faults in the prevalent religious opin- 
ions of the day, but not investigating them ; indicating 
dislike to certain obligations which are imposed upon 
clergymen, but not stating or considering what those 
obligations are ; leaving an impression upon devout 
Christians that something in their faith is untenable 
when they want to find in it what is tenable ; suggest- 
ing that earnest infidels in this day have much to 
urge in behalf of their doubts and difficulties ; never 
fairly asking what they have to urge, what are their 
doubts and difficulties." ^ 

On the other hand, the First Broad Church would not 
unite in the organized opposition to that work, because 
the denunciations and appeals " took an almost entirely 
negative form ; they contradicted and slandered objec- 
tions; they were not assertions of a belief; they led 
Christians away from the Bible, from the creeds 
which they confess to certain notions about the 
creeds, from practice to disputation. They met no real 

* Miss Oobbe, Brolcen Lights^ p. 63. London Edition. 



528 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 

doubts in the minds of unbelievers ; they only called 
for the suppression of all doubts. They confounded the 
opinions of the da}^ with the faith once delivered to the 
saints. They tended to make anonymous journalists the 
law-givers of the Church. They tended to discourage 
clergymen from expressing manfully what is in their 
hearts, lest they should incur the chai*ge of being un- 
fjiithful to their vows. They tended to hinder all se- 
rious and honest co-operation between men who are not 
bound together in a sectarian agreement, lest they 
should make themselves responsible for opinions differ- 
ent from their own." ^ Thus, while the First Broad 
Church occupied a neutral ground in the controveisy 
then rending the whole structure of English theolog}', 
its moral force was all against Evangelical Christianity, 
and in favor of the usurj)ations of Rationalism. 

But the theology maintained by the First Broad 
Chui'ch is little above that contained in the Essmjs 
and Reviews and similar nationalistic publications. 
With them, the Scriptures are better than any other 
books of antiquity because they contain the most of 
God's Avill, not because they alone contain his will. 
" These books," says a writer, " have been filtered out, 
as it were, under his guidance, from many others which, 
in ages gone by, claimed a place beside them, and are 
now forgotten, while these have stood for thousands of 
years, and are not likely to be set aside now." ^ They 
are indifferent as to their date, authorship, or contents. 
" Men may satisfy themselves, " the same writer con- 
tinues, " perhaps if I have time to give to the study, 
they may satisfy me — ^that the Pentateuch was the 
work of twenty men ; that Baruch wrote a part of 

^ Tracts for Priests and People. Preface, pp. 3-5. Am. Edition. 
' Hughes, in Tracts for Priests and People^ p. 28. 



VIEWS ON REDEMPTION. 



529 



Isaiali ; that David did not write tlie Psalms, or tlie 
evangelists the gospels ; that there are interpolations 
here and there in the original ; that there are numerous 
and serious errors in our translation. What is all this 
to me ? What do I care who wrote them, what is the 
date of them, what this or that passage ought to be ? 
They have told me what I wanted to know. Burn 
every copy in the world to-morrow, you don't and can't 
take that knowledge from me, or any man." ^ 

The Mosaic cosmogony is not a matter of great con- 
sequence, but on a par with other cosmogonies, none of 
which are of any intrinsic value. " If all cosmogonies 
were to disappear to-morrow," says Thomas Hughes, 
" I should be none the poorer." The various difficulties 
of Scripture are not of sufficient moment to occupy 
much time or pains. Let the people be made to under- 
stand the liberal interpretations of what the cultivated 
teachers have to say, and that will be enough to meet 
the world's wants. Perhaps it is with secret admiration 
of Bunsen's BiUe- Worlc^ the greatest exegetical triumph 
of Rationalism, that Kiiigsley asked: "Who shall write 
us a people's commentary of the Bible ? " 

Redemption is accepted in the Coleridgean sense. 
It is a term which does not express a scriptural fact, 
but is borrowed from earthly transactions. Christ's 
work in our behalf is of no special value in itself, its 
known effects being all that make it of moment to the 
human family.^ We should look at the results and not 
at the cause. The sacrifice which Christ made was one 
of obedience to his Father's will ; it does not free us 
and elevate us above the curse of a broken law, for, in 
a certain sense, the law has never been broken to the 

' Hughes, in Tracts for Priests and People^ p. 37. 
^ Garden, Tracts for Priests and People^ p. 133. 



530 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



extent that tlie evaugelicals claim, nor does eternal 
punishment harmonize with enlightened and liberal 
notions of divine mercy. Miracles are in danger of 
being worshiped by the friends of revelation. They 
have the misfortune of an impropei' term ; wonders 
would be a far better word. Why not accept them 
in the domain of faith, since we meet vrith them in 
science ? ^ Miracles of this kind, " wonders," are wil- 
lingly conceded, for they are not suspensions or viola- 
tions of the order of nature, but natural phenomena, 
whose laws we may not understand. The miracles of 
the New Testament are pui'ely natural ; but the people 
did not comprehend the laws which gave them birth, 
and hence they magnified them. " Where the people 
believed," says Mr. Davies, " rightly or wrongly, in evil 
spirits and sorceiy, in malignant and disorderly influ- 
ences proceeding from the spiritual world, there the 
powers of the true kingdom, the powers of order and 
freedom and beneficence, were put forth in acts which 
appealed directly to the minds of the ignorant and 
superstitious, and which proclaimed an authority 
stronger than that of demons. The common multitudes 
of Judea were of the class which thus required to be 
treated like spoiled and frightened children." ^ 

The Second Broad Church. This party maintained 
the avowed Eationalism of Jowett, the Esmys and Re- 
views, and Colenso. Miss Cobbe, in defining the points 
of difference between it and the Fii'st Broad Church, 
says of the latter, ^^It holds that the doctrines of the 
Bible and the church can be perfectly harmonized with 
the results of modern thought by a new but legiti- 
mate exegesis of the Bible and interpretation of church 

^ Davies, Tracts for Priests and People, p. 167. 
Ibid. p. 167. 



SECOND BEOAD CHURCH. 



531 



formulae. The Second Broad Churcli seems prepared 
to admit that in many cases they can only be harmon- 
ized by the sacrifice of biblical infallibility. The First 
Broad Church has recourse, to harmonize them, to va- 
rious logical processes, but principally to the one de- 
scribed in the last chapter, of diverting the student, at 
all difficult points, from criticism to edification. The 
Second Broad Church uses no ambiguity, but frankly 
avows that when the Bible contradicts science, the 
Bible must be in error. The First Broad Church main- 
tains that the inspiration of the Bible differs in kind as 
well as in degree from that of other books. The Second 
Broad Church appears to hold that it differs in degree 
but not in kind. This last is the crucial point of the 
differences of the two parties, and of one of the most 
important controversies of modern times." ^ The First 
Broad Church has made antagonism to the doctrine of 
endless punishment one of its great specialties, while 
the Second Broad Church has made its most violent 
assaults upon the evangelical view of the inspiration of 
the Scriptures. The position of the latter has grad- 
ually been merged with the extreme wing of radical 
biblical ciiticism, in which guise it to-day carries on its 
chief attack upon the evangelical views and doctrines. 

Frederick William Eobei tson, of Brighton, in his 
eloquent and spiritually edifying sermons dwells upon 
the ethical side of Christianity as a system of truth 
promotive of charity and purity rather than upon its 
supernatural character as a revelation. This emphasis 
upon the practical and moral qualities of the gospel, 
rather than upon its doctrinal and theoretical features, 
marked the later years of his all too brief ministry in 
Cheltenham and Brighton, — ^vhere he died in 1853 at 

^ BroTcen Lights^ pp. 73-74. 



532 



HISTORY OF KATI0NALT8.A[. 



the age of thirty-seven, — and has led some to class him 
with the First Broad Church party. Robertson even 
in his short career showed a high order of nobleness of 
mind and courage of spirit in his incessant and vigorous 
warfare on all foi-ms of unrighteousness, whether in 
high or humble walks, and was the very soul of intel- 
lectual sincerity and honesty. His keen blade of pene- 
trating and analytic edge, though wielded l)y a physical 
arm of weakness, fell with impartial stroke upon the 
sins of wealth and of poverty alike, and his all-pervasive 
charity and sympathy for suffering brought from the 
depths of his great heart, enlai'ged and enriched by the 
love of Christ, a drauo;ht of blessins: to all who needed 
a brother's word of hope and help. His position is 
perhaps better described as that of a conservative lib- 
eral ist \vho seized upon and held the central truth of 
the gospel, the love of God for man revealed in Jesus 
Christ, and gave himself utterly to the preaching and 
teaching of the true humanity set forth in the life of 
the Son of man, as the ideal type of manhood and the 
perfect child of God. He proclaimed Christ as the 
key to our understanding of humanity and the neces- 
sity and privilege of all men to come into faith in and 
fellowship with this life ; that men are of right and 
by constitution the children of God, but need to receive 
by faith, each man for himself, the message of Christ 
and thus become the actual and living members of the 
family of God. Faith does not make the relation of 
sonship with God, but recognizes and accepts it ; 
changes it from a fact, previously of no avail because 
of the soul's unconsciousness of it, to a fact vital and 
vividly experienced in the deepest consciousness. 

Eobertson held that Christ was a Saviour by ac- 
tually becoming that which every man may become 



ROBERTSOJS' OF BRIGHTON. 



583 



and is potentially, a cliild of God. He presented the 
death of Christ as a sacrificial atonement in that, 
through its real contact and sympathy with human 
Avretchedness, it shows that all true salvation comes 
from self-sacrifice for others' good, and most forcefully 
exemplifies a universal law which is illustrated by 
thousands of instances in nature and in human history. 
He defended the Bible as inspii'ed or as containing a 
message from God, but of necessity and mercifully 
couched in the imperfect medium of human language 
so as to be within the grasp of those to whom it was 
sent. The truths, wholesome for the soul and neces- 
sary for spiritual health and grow^th, are conveyed 
through words, inadequate indeed to carry the full 
burden of the divine thought and feeling; but they 
are the speech of men and the best that even the 
Father of lights could use. He made the foundation 
test of all truth, however, to rest not on the authority 
of Sci'ipture, nor the voice of the Church, but rather 
on the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the human heart ; 
and taught that this witness is to be gained, not through 
the intellect and its cultivation, but through the volun- 
tary obedience and love of the heart. 

Canon Frederic W. Farrar preached five sermons in 
1877 which were published in 1878 under the title Mer- 
nal Hope. They form a rhetorical and rather sentimen- 
tal protest against the common view of future punish- 
ment, its duration and its unchangeableness after death. 

The Dissenting churches all have their shades of 
opinion, and the Jews, Koman Catholics, Quakers, and 
the Unitarians have each their old and new schools, 
the former adhering to the old and established stand- 
ards, the latter striving to harmonize with modern 
science and free inquiry. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE UNITED STATES : THE UNITARIAN CHURCH— THE 

UNIVERSALISTS. ^ 

The aspect of novelty in the religious and theologi- 
cal history of the United States is unparalleled in the 
history of any European nation, and is traceable in pai-t 
to the peculiarities of our political origin and career. 
The founders of our government were wise students of 
the philosophy of history, and it was their opinion that 
many of the misfortunes which had befallen the coun- 
tries of the Old World were produced by the improper 
association of temporal and spiritual authority. They 
therefore made provision for the permanent separation 
of Church and State. Their design, however, was accom- 
plished only by degrees. Previous to the Revolution, 
but two States, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, permit- 
ted religious toleration. It was declared in Maryland 
in 1776, and in 1786-89 was carried out in Virginia. 
The general government took the matter in hand in 
1791 ; and, in that year, an amendment to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States was adopted, which prohibited 
Congress in future from " passing any law establishing 
religion, or prohibiting its free exercise." * 

It would seem that our forefathers were almost 
gifted with prophetic vision when they incorporated this 
statute with those other laws, which have contributed 

^ Smith, Eistory of the Church of Christ in Chronological Tables^ p. 74. 



UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 



535 



SO much to our prosperity. It would not have been in 
harmony with their spirit, if, while constituting an inde- 
pendent government, they had made the Church de- 
pendent. 

The principle of the union of church and state pre- 
supposes a greater degree of social purity than has 
existed in any nation. Moreover, the Church is thereby 
led to assume an authority to which she has no claim 
and which Christ never intended her to possess. Mil- 
ton, whose clear and practical views of civil and eccle- 
siastical relations were only equaled by his lofty poetic 
conceptions of man's moral nature and history, says : 
" When the church, without temporal support, is able 
to do her great works upon the enforced obedience of 
man, it argues a divinity about her. But when she 
thinks to credit and better her spiritual efficacy, and to 
win herself respect and dread by strutting in the false 
vizard of worldly authority, it is evident that God is 
not there, but that her apostolic virtue is departed from 
her, and has left her key-cold ; which she perceiving, as 
in a decayed nature, seeks to the outward fermentations 
and chafings of worldly help and external flourishes, to 
fetch, if it be possible, some motion into her extreme 
parts, or to hatch a counterfeit life with the crafty and 
artificial heat of jurisdiction. But it is observable that 
so long as the church, in true imitation of Christ, can 
be content to ride upon an ass, carrying herself and her 
government along in a mean and simple guise, she may 
be as she is a Lion of the tribe of Judah; and in her 
humility all men, \^ith loud hosannas, will confess her 
greatness. But when, despising the mighty operation 
of the Spii^it by the weak things of this world, she 
thinks to make herself bigger and more considerable, 
hy using the way of civil force and jurisdiction, as she 



536 IIISTOKY OF KA'J'IONALISM. i 

sits upon tliis Lion she changes into an ass, and instead 
of hosannas, every man pelts her with stones and dirt." ' 

The peculiarities which have characterized the his- 
tory of the American church are well defined, and of 
the greatest value in all estimates of the theological 
status of the popular mind. They are grouped by 
Professor Smith in the following: concise terms : " First 
It is not the histoiy of the conversion of a new people, 
l)ut of the traiisj^lantation of old I'aces, already Chris- 
tianized, to a ne^v theatre, comparatively untrammeled 
by institutions and traditions. Second, Independence 
of the civil power. Third. The voluntary principle 
applied to the support of religious institutions. Fourth. 
Moral and ecclesiastical, but not civil power, the means 
of retaining the members of any communion. Fifth 
Development of the Christian system in its practical 
and moral aspects, rather than in its theoretical and 
theological. Sixth. Stricter discipline in the churches 
than is practicable where church and state are one. Sev- 
enth. Increase of the churches, to a considerable extent, 
through revivals of religion, rather than by the natural 
growth of the children in an establishment. F/ighth. 
Excessive multiplication of sects ; and divisions on 
questions of moral reform." ^ 

When we consider the intimate relations between 
France and this country during the first stage of our 
national existence, it becomes a matter of surprise that 
French infidelity did not acquire greater influence over 
oui* people. It was not wholly without power, and the 
first twenty-five years of our history witnessed greater 
religious disasters than have appeared at any subse- 
quent tima Still it may be said with truth that skep- 

^ The Beaton of Church Government against Prelacy. Ch. II. 
^ History of the Church of Christy p. 74. 



RISE OF THE UNITARLVN CHURCH. 



537 



tical tendencies have ne^'er gained a permanent position 
in the United States, though our immunity from their 
sway has not been the result of indifference toward the 
great movements of Europe. The American has never 
been a cold observer of the hemisphere fr'om which his 
forefathers came. We appropriate the treasures of the 
Old World, and love to call them our own. We are as 
proud of the martyi'ology and literature of England as 
if Latimer and K-idley had died for their faith on Boston 
Common, or Shakespeare and Milton had lived on the 
banks of the Pludson. The early legislation of our 
. government having left the individual conscience to the 
exercise of its own convictions, each citizen has been 
more interested in whatever religious opinions might 
appear from European sources. 

What then has been the reception in America of 
that system of skepticism which has produced ravages 
on the Continent, and wrought much evil in our English 
mother-land ? Is nationalism likely to run its destruc- 
tive cycle in the United States? Has the American 
church no antidote for the great theological errors of 
the present age ? 

The denomination most intimately associated with 
Rationalistic tendencies is the Unitarian Church. Bos- 
ton is its centre, and New England the principal sphere 
of its existence. 

The Venerable Stoddard, of Northampton, Massa- 
chusetts, became convinced that the custom of exclud- 
ing unregenerate persons from the sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper was sinful ; and in 1708 published a ser- 
mon declaring his views on that subject. He held that 
the participation of unregenerate people in the commun- 
ion was highly beneficial to them ; and that it was in 
fact a means by which they might become regenerated. 



538 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



He defended his belief so zealously that he soon had 
the pleasure of seeing many followers gathering about 
liim. The doctrine was termed the Half-Way Cove- 
nant System, and was adopted in the church at North- 
ampton. Jonathan Edwards succeeded Stoddard, who 
was his grandfather ; and, a few years after the great 
revival in which the former took an active part, he 
adopted the opinion that the Half-Way Covenant was 
injurious. Edwards refused to practise it, and in his 
Treatise on tke Qualification's for Fall Gommunion he 
declared the necessity of regeneration. He was ac- 
cordingly dismissed from his church. 

This was the germ of American Unitarianism. 
Stoddard's adherents clung to their loose view of com- 
munion, while the friends of Edwards, being more 
spiritual, and many of them the fruits of the White- 
fieldian revival, sustained the orthodox construction 
mth energy. The Half-Way Covenant in due time 
called a party into existence, which "avoided all solic- 
itude concerning their own spiritual condition or that 
of others ; were repugnant to the revival spirit ; must 
have a system of doctrines which could contain nothing 
to alarm the fears or disturb the repose of the members 
of the party. The doctrines of apostasy, dependence on 
grace for salvation, necessity of atonement, and special 
influence of the Holy Spirit, were all thought to be 
alarming doctrines. They were therefore laid aside 
silently and without controversy. Men were suftered 
to forget that the Son of God, and the Spirit, have any- 
thing to do with man's salvation." ^ 

King's Chapel, Boston, was the first Episcopal 
church of New England. Its rector leaving with the 
British troops upon their evacuation of the town, Rev. 

^ Baird, Religion in America^ pp. 547-562. 



ORDINATION OF FREEMAN. 



539 



James Freeman was chosen in April, 1783, to occupy tlie 
vacant position. The services of the « church were con- 
ducted after the Episcopal form, the Book of Common 
Prayer being still used. Mr. Freeman's views under- 
went a change, and he delivered a course of doctrinal 
sermons in which he indicated decided Unitarian pro- 
clivities. Accordingly he introduced a revised liturgy, 
corresponding with Dr. Samuel Clarke's Revision of the 
Liturgy of the CJiurch of England^ from which the doc- 
trines of the Trinity and of the divinity of Christ were 
excluded. The congregation addressed a letter to 
Bishop Provost, of New York, in which inquiiy was 
made, " whether ordination of Rev. Mr. Freeman can be 
obtained on terms agreeable to him and to the proprie- 
tors of this church." The bishop proposed to refer the 
question to the next general convention. But the con- 
gregation, disliking such hesitation, determined to ordain 
their rector themselves. Accordingly, on November 
18th, 1787, the senior warden laid his hand on Mr. 
Freeman's head, and pronounced the declaration of 
ordination. The people responded " Amen ; " and thus 
was effected the first ordination of a Unitarian minister 
in the United States.^ 

Wide cii^culation had already been given to Emlyn's 
Inquiry into the Scripture Account of Jesus Christy 
which, in 1756, had been republished in Boston from the 
English edition. Before the close of the century the 
doctrines peculiar to Unitarianism became vddely dis- 
seminated in that city and in other portions of the State. 
Belsham issued in London, 1812, his Memoir of Lind- 
sey, which contained stai'tling disclosures of the doings 
of the Unitarians in America. Belsham's infoimants 

* Unitarianism in its Actual Condition. Edited by Rev. J. K. Beard, 
D.D. pp. 1-4. London, 1846. 



540 HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. | 

were leading Unitarians of Boston, among whom was Di'. 
Freeman, wliose letters covered a period of sixteen years, 
from 1796 to 1812. He communicated all the secret 
movements, growth, and dimensions of the party. Only 
a few copies of Belsham's work came to America, and 
they were hidden, lest any of the orthodox should see 
them. Finall}', Dr. Morse obtained one, and soon pub- 
lislied a pamphlet revealing its astounding contents. It 
now came to light, for the first time, that Unitarianism 
was a strong party ; that every Congregational church 
in Boston, except the Park Street and Old South, had 
become Unitarian ; and that there were seventy-five 
chui'ches in other parts of New England which had 
adopted the same views. The Unitarians were now com- 
pelled to come out of their hiding-place, and the ortho- 
dox watched their movements with intense interest. 

The zeal of the adherents of Unitarianism, however, 
did not diminish by exposure, and a very important 
event occurred, which indicated that their labors were 
successful. Dr. Ware, an avowed anti-Trinitarian, was 
chosen to the professorship of theology in Harvard 
College, in place of the deceased Dr. Tappan. The 
appointment created a profound excitement among the 
orthodox clergy, who were indignant at the procedure. 
But remonstrance was useless. Unitarianism was tri- 
umphantly domiciled at Cambridge, and many who 
designed preaching its tenets became attendants upon 
the lectures of Professors Ware and Andrews Norton. 
As a probable consequence of the great change in 
Harvard, the Andover Theological Seminary was estab- 
lished,^ — an institution which, from its origin to the 
present time, has shed a beneficent lustre upon the 

^ Sprague, Annals of the American Unitarian Pulpit. Historical Inr 
troduction^ p. xii. 



WILLIAM ELLERY CHAMING. 



541 



entire country. Its students have never ceased to be 
ornaments to the American pulpit, while some of the 
number have been worthy successors of Carey, Marsh- 
man, Coke, and AVard in heathen lands. Liberalism 
has somewhat dimmed its later record. 

The celebrated controversy between Drs. Channing 
and Worcester, occasioned by a pamphlet which ap 
peared in Boston in 1815, under the title oi American 
Unita/rianism^ led to the withdrawal of the Unitarians 
from the orthodox, and their formation into a distinct 
organization. Pursuing an aggressive policy, they or- 
ganized congregations in various parts of New Eng- 
land, and in the cities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wash- 
ington, and Charleston. This was the heroic age of the 
Unitarian church of America. 

Channing became immediately the leader of the new 
sect. He represents the best type of Unitarianism, 
Pure in life, ardent in his attachments, and heroic in 
spirit, he was well adapted to advance the cause which 
he had espoused. He had no taste for controversy, but 
the circumstances connected with the prevalent theology 
made such a deep impression on his mind that he felt it 
his duty to aid in the revival of what he deemed a 
more liberal faith. Not indorsing the extreme Uni- 
tarianism of Priestley and Belsham, he took a middle 
ground between it and New England Calvinism. He 
was attentively heard in his church at Boston, and was 
listened to by large audiences wherever he preached or 
lectured. 

His writings embrace a variety of topics, the chief 
of which, apart from religious themes proper, are 
slavery, temperance, education, and war. After his 
death (1842) his views attracted increased attention in 
Europe. In France, MM. Laboulaye, de Remusat, and 

36 



542 



IIISTORr OF RATION ALIS]\r. 



Eenau discussed them at length. Of his mental tran- 
sitions, an admiring writer saj^s: "From Kant's doc- 
trine of the leason he derived deeper reverence for 
the essential powers of man ; by Schelling's intimations 
of the Divine Life, everywhere manifested, he was made 
more devoutly conscious of the universal agency of God ; 
and he was especially delighted with the heroic stoicism 
of Fichte and his assertion of the grandeur of the hu- 
man will. But for his greatest pleasure and best dis- 
cipline he was now indebted to Wordsworth, whom he 
esteemed next to Shakespeare, and whose ^Excursion ' 
came to him like a revelation. With Wordsworth's 
mingled piety and heroism, humanity and earnest aspira- 
tion, with his all-vivifying imagination, recognizing 
greatness under lowliest disguises, and spreading sweet 
sanctions around every charity of social life, and with 
his longings to see reverence, loyalty, courtesy, and con- 
tentment established on the earth, he most closely sym- 
pathized. From this time he began to engage more 
actively in political and philanthropic movements." ^ 

Channing believed that orthodoxy was incalculably ' 
mischievous in its estimate of Deity and of human de- 
pravity. " God, we are told," says he, " must not be 
limited; nor are his rights to be restrained by any 
rights in his creatures. These are made to minister to 
their Maker's glory, not to glorify themselves. They 
wholly depend on him, and have no power which they 
can call their own. His sovereignty, awful and omnip- 
otent, is not to be kept in check, or turned from its 
purposes, by any claims of his subjects. Man's place is 
the dust. The entire prostration of his faculties is the 
true homage he is to offer to God. He is not to exalt 

* Appleton'a ATnerican Cyclopcedia. Art. Wm. Ellery Channing. W- 
L. SyTnonds, Esq., is the author of this biography. 



OPmiONS OF CHANGING. 



543 



his reason or his sense of right against the decrees of 
the Almighty. He has but one lesson to learn, that he 
is nothing, that God is All in All. Such is the com- 
mon language of theology." ^ 

Against these views he asserts man's free agency 
and moral dignity. His creed is the greatness of Human 
Nature ; such greatness as is seen in the intellectual 
energy which discerns absolute, universal truth in the 
idea of God, in freedom of will and moral power, in dis- 
interestedness and self-sacrifice, in the boundlessness of 
love, in aspirations after perfection, in desires and affec- 
tions which time and space cannot confine, and the 
world cannot fill. The soul, viewed in these lights, 
should fill us with awe. It is an immortal germ, which 
may be said to contain now within itself what endless 
ages are to unfold. It is truly an image of the infinity 
of God, and no words can do justice to its grandeur." ^ 
Instead of looking without for a basis of religion, we 
must commence at home, within ourselves. " We must 
start in religion from our own souls, for in them is the 
fountain of all divine truth. An outward revelation is 
only possible and intelligible on the ground of concep- 
tions and principles previously furnished by the soul. 
Here is our primitive teacher and light. Let us not 
disparage it. There are, indeed, philosophical schools 
of the present day, which tell us that we are to start in 
all our speculations from the Absolute, the Infinite. 
But we rise to these conceptions from the contempla- 
tion of our own nature ; and even if it were not so, of 
what avail would be the notion of an Absolute, Infinite 
existence, an Uncaused Unity, if stripped of all those 
intellectual and moral attributes which we learn only 

^ Wor]c^, Introductory Hema/rks, p. viii. 
* Ibid. p. vi. 



644 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



from our own souls ? What but a vague shadow, a 
sounding name, is the metaphysical Deity, the substance 
without modes, the being without properties, the naked 
Unity which performs such a part in some of our philo- 
sophical systems. The only God whom our thoughts 
can rest on and our hearts can cling to, and our con- 
sciences can recognize is the God whose image dwells 
in our own souls. The grand ideas of Power, Reason, 
Wisdom, Love, Rectitude, Holiness, Blessedness, that 
is, of all God's attributes, come from within, from the 
action of our own spiritual nature. Many indeed think 
that they learn God fi-om marks of design and skill in 
the outward world ; but our ideas of design and skill, 
of a determining cause, of an end or purpose, are de- 
rived from consciousness, from our own souls. Thus the 
soul is the spring of our knowledge of God." ^ 

The creed of the Unitarians must be studied as one 
would take soundings at sea. The measurement of one 
place is no guarantee of the depth in another. W^hat 
was believed twenty years ago, may not be endorsed by 
the leaders of to-day. One writer of their fold says : 
" Unitarianism is loose, vague, general, indeterminate in 
its elements and formularies." ^ When George Putnam 
installed Mr. Fosdick over the Hollis Street Church, he 
said with commendable candor, "There is no other 
Christian body of which it is so impossible to tell where 
it begins and where it ends. We have no recognized 
principles by which any man who chooses to be a Chris- 
tian disciple, and desires to be numbered with us, what- 
ever he believes or denies, can be excluded." f 

But Unitarianism has ever remained true to a few 
points. One of them is antagonism to orthodoxy. It^ 

^ Worlcs, Introductory Remarks, pp. xviii- xix. S 
^ Ellis, Half Century of Unitarianism, p. 34. X 



OPINIONS OF BELLOWS. 



545 



was an old cry of the German skeptics, " Away with 
orthodoxy. It fetters us to forms and creeds, makes 
us blind devotees to system, converts us into bigots, and 
dwarfs reason into an invisible pigmy." Yet we fre- 
quently meet with language of similar import in the 
present day. If we did not know its authorship we 
could easily tell the ecclesiastical fountain whence it 
flows. " The implications of false and shallow reasoning," 
says an American Unitarian divine, " partial observation, 
intellectual groping, moral obliquity, spiritual ignorance^ 
— in short, of puerility and superstition involved in a 
large part of the appeals, the preaching, the cant terms, 
the popular dogmas, the current conversation of Chris- 
tendom, — are discouraging evidences how backward is 
the religious thought of our day, as compared with its 
general thought ; how little harmony there is between 
our schools and our churches, our thinkers and our re- 
ligious guides, our political and national institutions 
and our popular theology. It is not Christianity — the 
rational, thorough, all-embracing Gospel of Christ, — 
which throws its blessed sanctities over and around our 
whole humanity, — which owns and consecrates our whole 
nature and our whole life — which is thus taught. It is 
a system which is narrower than Judaism, and compared 
with which Romanism is a princely and magnificent 
theology. I say advisedly, that if Protestantism en- 
dorses the vulgar notions of a God-cursed world,— a fall- 
en race, — a commercial atonement, — a doomed and hell- 
devoted humanity, — a mysterious conversion, — a Church 
which is a sort of a life-boat hanging round a wreck 
that may carry off a few women and selfishly-affrighted 
men, leaving the bolder, braver, larger portion to go 
down with the ship ; if this be the sum and substance 
of religion, — ^if these notions be the grounds of the late 



546 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



religious excitement and the doctrines which gave it 
power/ — then it is not so true to human nature, its wants 
and woes, its various and manifold tastes, talents, and 
faculties, as the old Catholic system, — and that, instead 
of trembling at the growth and prospects of Romanism 
in this country, we should more reasonably rejoice in its 
triumphs, as the worthier occupant of the confidence 
and affection of the people. But this narrow system, 
with all its arrogant claims to be the only Evangelical 
faith, is not Protestantism ; or, rather, is not mere Prot- 
estantism." ' 

But the indeterminateness of Unitarian theology does 
not warrant us in j)assing over its tenets, as stated by 
writers held in good repute in that Church. It would 
be unfair, however, to claim that these are doctrines to 
which each must inflexibly adhere. The Unitarians 
neither exact nor desire conformity to authority ; in 
fact they have no authority. Reason is left to place its 
own construction upon the truths of revelation. What, 
then, is the general Unitarian sentiment on those sub- 
jects whose essential importance is acknowledged by all 
Evangelical Churches ? 

Inspiration and the Scriptures. Channing and 
Dewey have held loftier views of the Bible and its divine 
origin than their less devout brethren. The latter has 
said that, " The matter is divine, the miracles real, the 
promises glorious, the threatenings fearful ; enough that 
all is gloriously and fearfully true to the divine will, 
true to human natui^e, true to its wants, anxieties, soi'- 
rows, sins, salvation, and destinies ; enough that the 
seal of a di\nne and miraculous communication is set 
upon tliat holy Book." ^ But reverence for the Scrip 

. ^ These words refer to the great Revival in the winter of 1857-58. 
^ Bellows, Restatements of Christian Doctrine^ i^p. 164-165. 
^ Controversial Sermons^ No. 1. 



GOD AXD CHRIST. 



54r 



tares lias rapidly declined among the Unitarians, — 
the direct result of the influence of the German and 
English Rationalists. They call all believers in ortho- 
dox opinions " Bibliolaters." They spurn the thought 
of an infallible Bible. " ISTo wonder," they say, " that 
the iBibliolaters quail before the iconoclasm of Bishop 
Colenso, and, in their rage, call aloud for his excision 
from the Church ; for, if a single one of the diffi- 
culties he accumulates can be proved a reality, the 

whole edifice of their faith topples to its fall 

We believe that safety and sense can alone be found in 
our theory, which regards Scripture as credible though 
human, as inspired not in its form, but in its substance, 
of various and, in many cases, of unknown authorship, 
and representing different stages of culture. We cannot 
accept all its documents as of co-ordinate authority; 
nor in every one of its statements can we recognize a 
product of inspiration. We do not conceive ourselves 
bound, therefore, to defend the geology of Moses, or to 
admire the conduct of the Israelites in the extermination 
of the Canaanites; or to infuse a recondite spiritual 
meaning into the amatory descriptions and appeals of 
the Song of Solomon." ^ 

God and Cheist. God is the Universal Father. It 
must be forgotten that he is king; his paternal charac- 
ter alone must be borne in mind. He is a God of one 
person, not of three, and the doctrine of the Trinity is 
nowhere hinted at in the Bible, but is of Platonic ori- 
gin. The Christian Fathers did not contend that it was 
contained therein. The view of three persons in one 
God is " self-contradictory, opposed to all right reason, 
positively absurd." ^ Christ is inferior and subordinate 

* Orr, Unitarianism in the Present Time^ pp. 54, 58, 59. 
' Farley, Unitarianism Defined^ p. 24. 



548 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 

to God. He is God in the same sense as the angels, 
Moses, Samuel, the Eangs a,nd Judges of Israel. They 
were gods in one respect, — the word of God was spo- 
ken to them. Christ is the chief one "to whom the 
word of God came." ^ In the New Testament, Christ is 
uniformly kept distinct from the Father, and the at- 
tributes which he possessed, wisdom, knowledge, and 
power, were endowments fi'om God. 

TiiE Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is not a person, 
but is merely sent from the Father, or proceeds from 
him. The apparent presence of the Holy Ghost in 
Christ's farewell discourse is only a personification re- 
sulting from the peculiar nature of the Greek language, 
and the necessity of its syntax. Not being a person, 
the Holy Ghost cannot be God, and is, therefore, not 
self-existent, underived, and unoriginated. Wherever 
it is described as a person it is only the writer's striking 
form of speech ; it is solely personification, just as we 
often find the case with the Law, Wisdom, Scripture, 
Sin, and Charity.^ 

HiDiAis- Depravity. The Unitarians have no place 
in their creed for man's natural sinfulness. It is, they 
say, a doctrinal innovation, having been propagated by 
Augustine in the fifth century. That God should 
create men who are naturally sinners is inconsistent 
with his parental character. " The doctrine is itself re- 
pulsive. The human mind revolts at it. If God our 
Creator has implanted within us a natural sense of 
right and wrong, that sense arraigns his character and 
conduct in creating us thus corrupt." ^ There is no such 
thing, the Unitarians contend, as the fall of man. 

^ Farley, Unitarianism Defined^ p. 26. 
' Ibid. pp. 122,123, 136. 
2 Ibid. pp. 156,157. 



BELLOWS ON TOTAL DEPRAVITY. 



549 



Adam was what we are. " Had lie not sinned " one of 
their writers affirms, " our race would have continued 
perfect and happy without the necessity for progress, 
or the need of any of those educational and recupera- 
tive processes to which Providence has resorted. Let 
those who can believe this ! Let those also who can, call 
the unfallen Adam and Eve satisfactory patterns and 
types of our complete humanity. Imagine a world of 
Adams and Eves, living in a garden, on spontaneous 
fruits, ignorant of the distinction between good and 
evil, and without any capacity of moral change or im- 
provement ! Can any amount of credulity enable an 
enlightened and candid mind of the present day to 
think this world originally made to be occupied by 
such a race ; that unfallen Adams and Eves could ever 
have developed its resources, or their own powers, and 
capacities of moral and spiritual happiness ? Can any 
subtlety perceive a true distinction between their con- 
dition and that of the innocent but feeble islanders of 
some few spots in the Pacific ? ^ Can any degree of 
superstition regard a state of unfallen holiness, which 
allowed our first parents to succumb in the midst of 
perfect bliss, and under God's own direct care and instruc- 
tions, before the first temptation, as superior to our 
present moral condition ? If Adam fell, the race rose 
by his fall ; he fell up, and nothing happier for our final 
fortunes ever occurred than when the innocents of the 
garden learned their shame, and fled into the hardships 
and experiences of a disciplinary and growing human- 
ity. . . , The radical vice of the popular way of 
thinking about moral evil lies in the supposition that 
. . . . a state of spotless innocencyis better than a 

' * Will not some geographer be kind enough to inform the public of 
the name and exact locality of these innocent islanders ? 



550 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. | 

state of moral exposure and moral struggle ; and that 
all our humanity is not entitled to use development and 
play, in its grand career of being. On the other hand, 
the true theory of humanity presents us with a race 
brought into this world for its education, starting with 
moral and intellectual infimcy, and liable to all the mis- 
takes, weaknesses, and follies, which an ungi'own and in- 
expei'ienced nature begets." ^ There is far more virtue 
in the world than there is vice. We grossly mistake when 
we make notoriously vicious characters the type of hu- 
manity at large. "Man ])y nature, as born and brought 
into this world, is innocent, pure ; guiltless because sin- 
less ; fitted for just that religion which Christ revealed 
to operate successfull)' and gloriously upon ; not indeed 
holy, but capable of Vjecoming so." 

The Atonement. The orthodox view of the atone- 
ment is denied by the Unitarians. Sacrifices are of 
human origin, those of the Mosaic religion being solely 
ritual, and symbolical acts of faith and worship. 
Christ's death did not appease the wrath of God in any 
sense, nor is anything said in the Scriptures concerning 
Christ's sufferings as causing or exciting the grace 
or mercy of God. It is not stated that God is rec- 
onciled to us, but we to him. Christ suffered as an 
example. A writer already quoted says : " Especially 
were the anguish and patience of his final sufferings and 
his awful death upon the cross appointed and powerful 
means of affecting the mind of man." ^ Another author 
fl-ffirms : " Christ saves us, so far as his sufferings and 
death are concerned, through their moral influence and 
power upon man ; the great appeal which they make 
being not to God, but to the sinner's conscience and 

* Bellows, Restatements of Christian Doctrine^ pp. 228-230. 
Wo-rJcs of R. Ware, jr. ^ vol. iv, p. 91. 



THE ATOI^EIVIEIST. 



551 



heart ; tlius aiding in the great work of bringing him 
into reconciliation with or reconciling him to his Father 
in heaven. . . . Eeconciliation is accomplished by 
Christ ; by all that he was and is ; all that he taught, 
did, and is doing ; and by all that he suffered for our 
sake. Not by one but by all of these are we saved." ^ 
Christ's sacrifice was not made to God, for he did not 
need to be propitiated or rendered mercifal, but simply 
with reference to man alone, — for his good ; God's jus- 
tice needed no pacification. " There can be no greater 
or more blinding heresy than that which would teach 
that Christ's sufterings, or any sufferings in behalf of 
virtue and human sins and sorrows, are strictly substi- 
tutional, or literally vicarious. The old theologies, per- 
plexed and darkened with metaphysics and scholastic 
logic — the fruit of academic pride and the love of eccle- 
siastical dominion — labored to prove and to teach that 
Christ, in his short agony upon the cross, really suffered 
the pains of sin and bore the actual sum of all the an- 
guish from remorse and guilt due to myriads of sinners, 
through the ages of eternity. . . . Our sense of 
justice and goodness, so far as God himself is concerned, 
is vastly more shocked by the proper penalties of sin 
being placed upon the innocent than had they been left 
upon the guilty, where they belong. . . . The truth 
is, literal substitution of moral penalties is a thing abso- 
lutely impossible ! Vicarious punishment, in its tech- 
nical and theological sense, is forbidden by the very 
laws of our nature and moral constitution." ^ 

Regeneeation. This is a universal want, but it is 
entirely consistent with the purity of human nature. 
The natural birth gives no moral character ; it is to be 

^ Farley, Unitarianism Defined^ pp. 208-210. 

' Bellows, Eestatements of Christian Doctrine, pp. 306,307. 



552 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



formed, and when formed, is called the " new birth." 
This is all that Christ meant when he said to Nico- 
demus, " Except a man be born again he cannot see the 
kingdom of God." Regeneration must not, therefore, be 
considered a consequence of human depravity, but a 
result of human purity. It is the development of that 
which is already good within us. 

Future Punishment. The Unitarians of America 
have, for the most part, adopted the Restitutional 
theories of Hartley and Priestley. Mr. Ballon claims 
" the whole body of Unitarians as Universalists." Pun- 
ishment may be inflicted after death, but it will be tern- 
porary. " The punishments of hell are disciplinarian 
and do not forbid the hope of remission and relief." ^ 

The best method of determining the real spirit 
of Unitarianism is to ol)serve the reception whicli it 
gave to the Rationalism of the latter part of the last 
century in England. The welcome has been most 
cordial. A Unitai'ian clergyman became the Ameri- 
can editor of the Essays and Iteviews and hailed the 
appearance of such a book as representing a new and 
better era in modern theology. He held that the real 
" life of Anglican theology is now represented by such 
men as Powell and Williams and Maurice and Jowett 
and Stanley ; " that the Broad Church is the only one 
which fully embodies true progress and conservatism ; 
that Rationalism is the only alternative of Romanism ; 
and that, as a matter of course, the former should }»e 
adopted. He expressed the hope that the spirit of Ra- 
tionalistic critieism, " which is now leavening the Church 
of England, may find abundant entrance into all the 
churches of our land," and that the Essays and lie- 

* Orr, Unitarianism in the Present Time^ p. 8. 

• F. H. Hedge, D.D. | 



rouNG men's christian union. 553 



views, " its genuine product, may contribute somewhat 
thereto." ' 

The quarterly organ of the Unitarians, The Christian 
Examiner (ceased 1869), loudly praised the same 
exponent of English Rationalism, and manifested no 
tempered gladness at skepticism within the pale of the 
church. It said, with undisguised satisfaction, that 
" either these seven essayists must have been in very 
close and intimate confidential relations as friends or 
fellow-students, and have held many precious confer- 
ences together in which they were mutually each other's 
confessors ; or, there must be quite a large number of 
very able and very heretical sinners in the Church of 
England, within easy hail of each other, and so thick in 
some neighorhoods that it is the readiest thing in the 
world to pick out a set of them who, ^ without concert 
or comparison,' will contribute all the parts of a fresh 
and unhackneyed system of opinion^ 

One of the most direct and outspoken of all the 
organized attacks of American Rationalism upon evan- 
gelical Christianity occurred at the first public an- 
niversary of the Young Men's Christian Union, of New 
York. Its importance was due to the diversity of un- 
eyangelical bodies there represented, and to the celebrity 
of several of the speakers. Unitarianism, Sweden- 
borgianism, and Universalism mingled in happy fra- 
ternity. The speakers were Drs. Osgood, Bellows, 
Sawyer, and Chapin ; Rev. Messrs. Barrett, Peters, 
Mayo, Higginson, Miel, Blanchard, and Frothingham ; 
and Richard Warren and Horace Greeley. 

The Union seems to have been designed as a counter- 
poise to the large and flourishing Young Men's Christian 
Association, which is comprised of earnest and active 

* Essays and Reviews^ Introduction to Boston Edition. 



554 msTORY OF rationalism. 

members of all orthodox denominations. The platform 
of the former may be determined from the following sig- 
nificant language : " The Anniversary of the Young 
Men's Christian Union was the first instance in which 
so many of the leading minds in the various branches 
of the liberal and progressive portion of the Christian 
church have met on one common platform, for the pur- 
pose of discussing the practical bearings of that higher 
type of Christianity which refuses to be limited by any 
dogma, or fettered by any creed." ^ One of the speakers, 
in explaining the relations of the Union to the church, 
said : " We maintain, then, that we are m the church, 
are the church — not a part of it, but the whole church, 
— having in us the heart and soul of orthodoxy itself, 
the essence of all that gave life to its creed, the utmost 
significance and vital force of what it taught and still 
teaches, in what we conceive to be a stuttering and 
stammering way, in a cumbrous and outworn language, 
with a circuitous and wearisome phraseology; but 
meaning really what we mean, and doing for men essen- 
tially what we are doing. All that we claim is a better 
statement of the old and changeless truth, a disembar- 
rassed account of the ever true and identical story. 

. . We have not separated ourselves from the 
brethren [orthodox] ; we hold them in our enclosure ; 
we are always ready to receive them, to welcome them. 
We are not expecting they will receive us, on account 
of their providential position. We have an intellectual 
perception of what the times demand and what the 
future is to be. We can see clearer than they. We 
can see why they are wrong ; they cannot see why we 
are right — but they vrill presently. . , . The actual 
presence of God in the world, in all his love and mercy, 

* Beligious Aspects of the Age. Preface, p. 3. 



DENUNCIATION OF D0GMATIS3I. 



555 



Bupplyiiig our deficiencies, helping our infirmities, con- 
secrating and transforming matter, giving sanctity and 
beauty to life — this is what the renewing of the old 
faith offers to humanity. 

"The indistinct perception of this faith and the 
divine craving to see it clearly and bring it to the sight 
of others, has led to the existence and organization of 
the Liberal churches, and indirectly to the formation 
of the Young Men's Christian Union. Faith in man as 
the child of God, his word and residence, authorizing 
the freest use of thought, the profoundest respect for 
individual convictions, the firmest confidence in progress 
and in the triumph of truth ; inspiring good will, hu- 
mane affections, philanthropic activity, and personal 
holiness ; faith in God as the Father of man — man's 
univei'sal Saviour and inspirer — man's merit consists 
wholly in being his child and the pupil of his grace in 
nature, life, the church, and the unseen world — these 
are the permanent articles of Christian faith, which is 
not so much faith in Christ, as Christ's faith." ^ 

It is difficult to conceive how the most of the speak- 
ers at the anniversary in question could have better 
served the interests of a bold and unmitigated system 
of Eationalism. The great evil of the day is declared 
to be dogmatism, against which every true friend of 
progress must deal his most destructive blows. Liberal 
minds must break loose from the fetters of authority, 
and give play to their own infallible reason. The Prot- 
estant evangelical church is placed upon the same foot- 
ing with Romanism ; both of which organizations un- 
church all who do not conform to their creed. " The 
truth is," says a speaker, " this Protestant evangelical 
church is in the same chronic delusion as its enemy, the 
Roman Catholic church ; it can propose no plan of 

' Bellows, in Religious Aspects of the Age, pp. 109-111. 



556 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



Cliristian union wMch will include the Christians of 
the country. Its only idea of union is the conspiracy 
of a few sects to take the kingdom of heaven by vio- 
lence ; monopolize its honors in this world and the 
world to come ; and either compel the rest of mankind 
to come into its aiTangement, or be turned into ever- 
lasting perdition — a proceeding which the American 
people, with due respect to the undeniable rights of 
this chiu'ch, begs leave respectfully to decline, — and fur- 
ther to intimate, that it is not at all alarmed about the 
eternal consequences of a refusal to accede to the pre* 
tensions of an ecclesiasticism that assumes to be God's 
vicegerent to the United States of America." ^ 

Great fault is found with the doctrines of the plenary 
inspiration of the Scriptui'es, and the efficacy of Christ's 
blood for man's salvation. God is in man ; and man's 
moral instincts, intellectual mould, and spiritual senses 
are infinitely wiser than we conceive them to be They 
are infallible in what they say of God, and are the best 
criteria of truth. How much the world has been given 
up to the worship of the Bible ! " The Bibles will be 
left here to bui-n in the general conflagration with the 
other temporary representations of the Word of God, 
which is the eternal Eeason, the foundation of our 
being." This Eeason is the " elder Scripture of God, 
— the soul, the inspired child of the heavenly and eter- 
nal Father." The answer is given to the question, 
Why does orthodoxy believe in the efficacy of Christ's 
blood, to save the souls of men ? " It is because man 
distrusts his reason, and invents the infallible church, 
and then the infallible Scriptures, to supply his neces- 
sity of anchorage. He cannot think the God of the 
universe can be willing to save such a miserable sinner, 

^ Mayo, in Religious Aspects of the Age, pp. 68,69. 



rNFIDELS PRONOUNCED TO BE BENEFACTORS. 55? 

aud he invents a God of the churcli, who will. He does 
not believe anything men can do will entitle them to 
heaven, or that human lives can make them acceptable 
in the sight of God." ^ , 
From the preceding statements it will not be sur- 
prising to find some of the speakers apologizing for out- 
right infidelity. " Mr. President " says one, " you, in 
the judgment of very many, are an infidel. The mem- 
bers of this Christian association occupy what is re- 
garded an infidel position. And that very admirable 
constitution, which I have read to-day, if presented at a 
council of churches, commonly reputed orthodox, would 
be considered, doubtless, the platform of an infidel asso- 
ciation. . . . Infidels, in all generations of the 
church, have been jprogressive in every direction ; the 
believers in the present and the fnture ; the people who 
had confidence in the improvability of man, and the 
perennial inspirations of God ; the men and women who 
were persuaded that all the spheres of wisdom and ex- 
cellence were opened to human powers, and that man 
was welcomed to all the treasure they contain. . . . 
They are a thoughtful, earnest, hopeful people, bent on 
finding the truth, and doing their duty." ^ Such in- 
fidels as these are claimed to have blessed the world. 
All liberal minds ought to catch their spirit and ad- 
minister every possible blessing to struggling humanity. 
But there is a species of narrow-minded infidelity which 
must be shunned ; and it is the only kind of which we 
need to forebode any evil. " The only infidelity to be 
feared," says Mr. Frothingham, " the only real infidelity 
which is a sin in the sight of God, is a disbelief in the 
primary faculties of the human soul ; disbelief in the 

* Bellows, in Religious Aspects of the Age, pp. 102, 103. 
» Frothingham, Ibid. pp. 121—126. 

37 



558 



HISTOEY OF RATIONALISxM. 



capability of man's reason to discriminate between truth 
and error in all departments of knowledge, sacred or 
pro£me ; disbelief in the heart's instinctive power to 
distinguish good from evil ; disallowance of the claims 
of conscience to pass a verdict upon matters of right 
and wrong, whenever and wherever brought up. They 
are the infidels who are untrue to the light they have ; 
who deny the plenaiy inspiration of that elder Scripture 
written by the finger of God upon the human heart ; 
who overlay theii* reason with heaps of antiquated tradi- 
tions ; who bid their conscience stand dumb before 
appalling iniquities in obedience to the ill-read letter of 
an ancient record ; who, in the interest of power, wealth, 
worldliness, not seldom of unrighteousness and inhu- 
manity, plead for a Tract society, a Bible, or a church ; 
who compass sea and land to make a proselyte, and 
when he is made are quite indifferent as to his being a 
practical Christian ; who collect vast sums of money 
annually for the ostensible purpose of saving men's 
souls, practically to the effect of keeping their souls in 
subjection and blindness. As I read the New Testa- 
ment, I find that Jesus charged infidelity upon none 
but such as these ; the people who made religion a 
cloak for pride, selfishness, and cruelty ; the conspicu- 
ously saintly people, who could spare an hour to pray 
at a street corner, but had not a minute for a dying 
fellow-man lying in his blood in a lonely pass. In the 
judgment of these, Jesus was the prince of unbelievers. 
Punctilious adherence to the letter, practical disbelief 
in the spirit — this is infidelity." ^ 

The most important event in the history of the 
American Unitarian Church was the National Convention 
which met in New York, April 5th, 1865, and was pre- 

^ Eeligiom Aspects of the Age, pp. 131-132. 



TINITARIAI^ NATIOITAL CONVENTION. 559 



sided over by Governor Andrew, of Massacliusetts. 
Six hundred ministers and laymen, representatives of 
one hundred and ninety churches, were in attendance. 
The debates indicated wide diversity of sentiment, but 
there was no open rupture. The sessions were per- 
vaded by a spirit of devoted loyalty to the civil govern- 
ment, liberality toward all Christian bodies, and zeal in 
organizing educational and missionary agencies through- 
out the country. A biennial National Conference of 
Unitarian Churches was appointed for the future. The 
Convention was unable to arrive at a common system 
of belief. 

The later developments of American Unitarianism 
have been toward the broadest liberalism and Ration- 
alism. Minot J. Savage, a modern exponent of its 
position, said in 1890, The distinguishing character- 
istic of Unitarianism is its conviction of the supremacy 
of reason over all church oro^anizations and over all 
books." Disavowing any creed, its National Confer- 
ence in 1894 unanimously assented to this statement, 
which Edward Everett Hale says may be called its 
motto, "These churches accept the religion of Jesus, 
holding, in accordance with his teaching, that practical 
religion is summed up in love to God and love to man.' 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, for a time a Unitarian min- 
ister, later severed his connection with that church. 
His early bias toward skepticism seems to have been 
strengthened when he was eighteen by a volume of 
Montaigne's essays, left to him by his father. He says : 
" I remember the delight and wonder in which I lived 
with it. It seemed to me as if I had myself written 
the book in some former life, so sincerely it spoke to 
my thought and experience." Turning from Unitarian- 
ism as unsatisfying to his mind and heart, he seems to 



560 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



have abandoned all other forms of Christianity. He 
exceeded the farthest reaches of mysticism by a course 
and a position which made him the prince of modern 
transcendentalism. The unit of value in his philosophy 
(if any he had) and rehgion is the soul ; the individual 
soul, with its consciousness of its own states and acts, 
is the centre whence all his oracular utterances radiate, 
and to which all the deep questions of men are directed 
for answ^er, even though the responses be as ambiguous 
or contradictory as those of ancient Delphos. The full 
public announcement of his l)reak with historic Chris- 
tianity, the Sciiptures as the standard of belief, and 
the chui'cli as a divine institution was made in his ad- 
dress before the Divinity School at Cam})ridge in July, 
1838. He ascribed to Jesus the place and function of 
a true prophet, but such a divinity only as every man 
2^ossesses or in his proper light may possess by a true 
self-respect and self-culture. He asserted the moral 
natui'e of man as the supreme source of light on all 
ethical questions, private and public, and thus denied 
a place for a written revelation. 

Emerson a little later, in writing to Henry Ware, Jr., 
says: '^I have ahvays been from my very incapacity 
of methodical writing a chartered libertine, free to wor- 
ship and free to rail, lucky when I could make myself 
understood, but never esteemed near enough to the in- 
stitutions and mind of society to deserve the notice of 
the masters of literature and religion." In his devotion 
to the ideal Emerson lost sight of the real, and his 
W'ri tings have been admired for their poetic setting and 
spirit rather than their philosophic or religious value. 
He was a good-natured seer, but not a guide. 

Closely allied to the Unitarians in spirit and in doc- 
trine are the Universalists, who date the beginning of 



i 



THE imiYEESALISTS. 



561 



their strength in the United States from the arrival of 
the Rev. John Murray, in 1770. They unite with the 
Unitarians in rejecting the triune character of God, and 
hold that their view of the divine unity is as old as the 
giving of the law on Sinai. The doctrine of the Trinity 
is nowhere stated in the Scriptures, for God would then 
have given us a religion enveloped in mystery, which 
procedure he has studiously avoided. The Trinitarian 
view entertained by the orthodox is not only a self- 
contradiction, but would be a violation of the harmony 
and order everywhere perceptible in nature.-^ 

Christ is next to God in excellence ; he is " God 
manifest in the flesh ; " that is, God has given him more 
of his glory than any other creature has eujoyed. 
Christ was simply sent by God to do a certain work, 
and served only as a delegate when he spoke and acted 
as one having authority.^ The Holy Spirit exerts an 
influence upon the heart by purely natural methods. 
The new birth is therefore merely the result of ordinary 
means for human improvement. 

The most important article of the Universalist creed 
is the final salvation of all men. The goodness of God 
is infinite, and therefore he will save all his rational 
creatures through Christ, his Son and Ambassador. 
Man suffers in this world the natural consequences of 
his wayward conduct ; but when the penalty is once 
inflicted, there is no need of vengeance. The chief end 
of suffering in the present life is man's improvement 
and restoration to perfect happiness. Pain ordained 
for its own sake, and perpetuated to all eternity, would 
be a proof of infinite malignity. By virtue of God's 
penevolence, man's suffering has a beneficent element, 

* Williamson, Exposition and Defense of Universalism, pp. 11-13. 
2 Skinner, Universtalism Illustrated and Defended, pp. 51-56. 



562 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



and must therefore be temporary and result in good.' 
When Christ comes to raise the dead, he will relieve 
from misery all the sons of men, give them a new life 
and take them to himself." 

The adherents of Universalism insist upon philan- 
thropy and the brotherhood of man. They hold that 
orthodox theology fosters harsh notions of God's 
character, fills the mind with superstition, and is the 
soui'ce of some of the most flagrant evils of the present 
age. " We regret," says one of their writers, " that the 
acknowledged faith and opinions have done no more to 
elevate the affections, and improve the condition of 
man. They have utterly ftiiled to correct the heart or 
the life. They have disturljed his present peace, and 
darkened his prospects for the future. Thousands of 
the young and innocent have been induced to relinquish 
^vhatever is most beautiful in life — to give up all that 
renders religion attractive and divine, for a miserable 
superstition, which, like the Upas, fills the very atmos- 
phere with death. I am reminded that this dark theol- 
ogy, like a gi'eat idol, has been rolling its ponderous 
car over the world for ages — -I follow its desolating 
track, by the wreck of noble minds — by the fearfal 
wail of the lost spirit, and the crushed hopes and affec- 
tions of those I love ! Oh ! when I look at this pic- 
ture, drawn with the pencil of reality, in all its deep 
shadows and startling colors, the brain is oppressed and 
the heart is sick ; and wMle I would stifle the inquiiy, 
it finds an utterance : — In the name of reason, of hu- 
manity and heaven, is there no hope for man? " ^ 

* Appleton's American CyclojxBdia, Art. Universalists. 

^ Williamson, Exposition and Defense of Universalism, pp. 140-155. 

' Brittan, Universalism as an Idea., pp. 13, 13. Statistics of American 
Universalism for 1900 are as follows : 30 State Conventions ; 735 Minis- 
ters; 764 Churches; 53,926 Members; 3 institutions of higher learning — 



mSTOEICAL EECOED OF SKEPTICISM. 563 



Tliis declamatory lament over the theology of the evan- 
gelical Christian church is a repetition of an old skepti- 
cal charge. It is the expression of a spirit similar to that 
which animated the German Eationalists, prompted the 
criticism of Colenso and of the Essays and Beviews, 
and is ever ready to welcome any effort that may 
promise a revolution of the popular rehgious sentiment 
in Great Britain and the American Kepublic. Ortho- 
doxy is unhesitatingly pronounced a public curse. In 
reply, we would request our skeptical opponents to re- 
member the historical record of their principles, as seen 
in the social convulsions of Germany, in the immorality 
and revolutions of France, and in the religious indiffer- 
ence and prostration of England in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. We would remind them, further, that orthodox 
theology has here been in the ascendant, and that in no 
land are public morals purer, the laws more just, human- 
itarian enterprises better supported, material inter- 
ests more progressive, or education better fostered than 
in the United States. The American Church laments that 
her faith has not been stronger and her zeal more fer- 
vent, but her history, with all its dark pages of hesita- 
tion and inefficiency, is the answer which she returns 
to the accusations of her Kationalistic opponents. 
Meanwhile, she proposes to continue her labor for hu- 
man salvation, by the promulgation of her present sys- 
tem of theology, nor will she consider her mission ac- 
complished until the gospel of Christ has been preached 
to every creature. 

Buchtel College, at Akron, O., with 17 Instructors, 272 Students, and 
8,000 volumes; St. Lawrence University, at Canton, K Y., with 14 In- 
structors, 136 Students, and 10,000 volumes; and Tufts College, Mass., 
with 110 Instructors, 800 Students, and 44,000 volumes. The last 
earned, however, is not strictly denominational. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE UNITED STATES CONTINUED: THEODORE PARKER. 
LATER AUTHORS AND CONFLICTS. 

The early Unitarian Church of America was ardent 
in its attachment to the doctrine of miracles. An article 
which appeared in the Christian Kxaminer in one of 
its early i^ssiies pi'ovoked great op2)osition because of 
its severe strictures on this branch of Christian evidence. 
The writer held tliat miracles, even if proved to have 
occurred, can estaljlish nothing in favor of a religion 
which has not already stood the test of experience ; and 
that the doctrines of Christianity must first be determined 
reasonable before we are compelled to believe that 
miracles were wrought in attestation of them. The 
elder school of Unitarians denounced his statements as 
open infidelity. A violent controversy ensued, but no 
schism took place. Theodore Parker stood at the head 
of the radical movement, and afterward labored unre- 
mittingly to disseminate his theological opinions. In 
him American Rationalism finds its complete personifi- 
cation. He represents the application of German infi- 
delity to the Unitarianism of New England. 

This celebrated advocate of temperance and freedom 
was prompted by a deep and unselfish love of his race. 
He was descended from a soldier of the Revolutionary 
army, and inherited that indomitable will, strong patri- 



THEODOEE PAEKEE. 



565 



otic impulses, and native talents, whicli had character- 
ized his ancestry for several generations. His mental 
qualities were of a lofty type. He was a linguist who, 
in correctness of speech and facility of acquisition, had 
few equals on this side of the Atlantic. His eloquence 
^as stirring and popular, while his pen was facile and 
fruitful. Commencing to preach in West Eoxbury, Mas- 
sachusetts, the unusual character of his pulpit ministra- 
tions attracted public attention. On being invited to 
Boston, he assumed the pastoral relation over a newly- 
formed church, the Twenty-Eighth Congregational So- 
ciety. In addition to his sermons, he lectured in all 
parts of the Northern States, and found time to write 
regularly for periodicals, compose original works, and 
make translations of German authors with whom his 
own theological opinions were in sympathy. 

Though often in feeble health, he seldom allowed 
physical languor to intermit his work. When threat- 
ened with consumption he was induced to spend some 
time at Santa Cruz, whence he sailed for Italy. He 
died at Florence in the spring of 1860, not having com- 
pleted his fiftieth year, and after a pastorate of only 
fourteen years at the Melodeon. He had often ex- 
pressed a desire in earlier life that, like Goethe and 
Channing, he might not be deterred from labor by the 
prospect of immediate death. Shortly before his de- 
cease he addressed to his congregation in Boston a 
lengthy letter containing his experience as a minister. 
He now lies in the little cemetery outside the walls of 
Florence ; his tombstone, at his own request, simply re- 
cording his name and the dates of his birth and death. 
He bequeathed his library, containing over thirteen 
thousand volumes, to the Free Library of Boston. 

Oui' chief concern is with Mr. Parker as a theologian. 



566 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



He was a stranger to moderation in every form. Hav- 
ing conceived certain skeptical views, lie knew no terms 
strong enough to condemn tbe whole evangelical scheme. 
His chief defects of style are aljruptness and occasional 
N'ulgarity, which no man more regretted than their au- 
thor in his calmer hours. But there can be no apology 
for his dealing with serious subjects in that vein of sar- 
casm which reminds us of the grossness of the coarser 
brood of infidels. An English critic, noticing this de- 
fect, says : " His vigor of style was deformed by a pow- 
er of sarcasm, which often invested the most sacred 
subjects with caricature and vulgarity ; a boundless 
malignity against supposed eiTors. . . . He equals 
Paine in vulgarity and Voltaire in sarcasm.'' ^ 

Parker felt that a bold course must be taken or 
orthodoxy could not be made to yield its position. His 
biographer informs us that when he was less than seven 
years of age " he fell out with the doctrines of eternal 
damnation and a wrathful God." ^ In later life, when 
strivins: to find the sources of what he considered the 
evils of the pojDular theology, he fixed upon two com- 
mon idols : " the Bible, which is only a record of men's 
words and works ; and Jesus of Nazareth, a man who 
only lived divinely some centuries ago. The popular 
relio-ion is wrone: in that it tells, man he is an outcast, 
that he is but a spurious issue of the devil, must not pray 
in his own name, is only sure of one thing — and that is 
damnation. Man is declared to be immortal, but it is 
such immortality as proves a curse instead of a blessing. 
In fact this whole orthodox theology rests on a lie." ^ 

His positive faith is comprehended in his own term, 



^ Forrar, Critical History of Free Thought^ p. 324. 

* Weiss, Life arid Correspondence of Theodore FarTcer^ vol. i, p. 30. 

• Discourse on Matters Fertaining to Religion^ pp. 5, 6. 



paeker's opinion of deity. 



567 



"the Absolute Religion." God lias created man with an 
intuitive religious element, the strongest and deepest in 
human natui^e, indestructible, and existing everywhere. 
Its legitimate action is to produce reverence, and ascends 
into trust, hope, and love, or descends into doubt, fear, 
and hate. Religion is not confined to one age, or peo- 
ple, or sect. It is the same thing in each man, " not a 
similar thing — but the same thing." Three forms of re^ 
ligion have existed, and each in turn has ruled the mind, 
• — Fetichism, Polytheism, and Monotheism. The first 
can be distinctly traced in the mythical stories of Genesis, 
the second in pagan nations, and the third in these later 
times. Now, it is a very small matter in which one of 
these forms man has worshiped or may still worship. 
If he worship at all, he adores the true God, " the only 
God, whether he caJl on Brahma, Jehovah, Pan, or 
Lord, or by no name at all. . . . Many a swarthy 
Indian, who bowed to wood and stone ; many a grim- 
faced Calmuck, who worships the great God of 
storms ; many a Grecian peasant, who did homage to 
Phoebus- Apollo when the sun rose or went down ; yes, 
many a savage, his hand smeared all over with human 
sacrifice, shall come from the east and the west, and sit 
down in the kingdom of God, with Moses and Zoroaster, 
with Socrates and Jesus, — while men who called daily 
on the only living God, who paid their tribute and 
bowed at the name of Christ, shall be cast out because 
they did no more." ^ 

Christianity, with Parker, is not the absolute religion, 
because a better may be developed. The great differ- 
ence between it and other religions is : first, in the 
point whence it sets out, other religions starting from 
something external and limited, but Christianity from 

* Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Beligion, p. 111. 



568 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



the spirit of God in the soul of man speaking througli 
reaso^i, conscience, and the religious sentiment ; second, 
it is not a system but a method of religion and life ; 
and, third, its eminently practical natui'e. The Deity 
adored by many people is a pure fabrication, for supei-- 
stition projects its own divinity, which of course will 
be after its own impure mould. Men call the phantom 
God, Moloch, or Jehovah, and then attempt to please 
the capricious being whom they have conjured up. The 
true idea of God is his infinite presence in each point of 
space ; this immanence in matter is the basis of his in- 
fluence ; this imposition of a law is the measure of 
God's relation to matter ; and the action of the law is 
therefore mechanical, not voluntary or self-conscious. 

The Bible, according to the same method of argu- 
mentation, is as much a human book as the Prinoipia 
of Newton. Some things in it are true, but no reason- 
able man can accept others. It is full of contradictions; 
" there are poems which men take as histories ; prophe- 
cies which have not been and never will be fulfilled ; 
stories of miracles that never happened ; stories which 
make God a man of war, cruel, rapacious, revengeful, 
hateful, and not to be trusted. We find amatory songs, 
selfish proverbs, skeptical discourses, and the most awful 
imprecations human fancy ever clothed in speech." The 
minds of the writers of the Old Testament were not de- 
cided in favor of the exclusive existence of Jehovah; 
and all the early books betray more of a polytheistic 
belief than we find in the prophets. The legendary 
and mythical writings of the Hebrews prove unmistak- 
ably that man was first created in the lowest savage 
life ; that his religion was the rudest worship of nature ; 
and that his morality was that of the cannibal. All 
the civilized races have risen through various forms of 



PARKER'S VIEWS. 



569 



developing faith before reaching refinement and true 
religion. We do not know who are the writers of most 
of the scriptural books. Their records are at variance 
with science. The account of Jehovah's determination 
that the carcasses of Israel should fall in the wilderness 
because of disobedience, is a " savage story of some 
oriental who attributed a blood-thirsty character to his 
Ood, and made a deity in his own image, and it is a 
striking remnant of barbarism that has passed away, 
not destitute of dramatic interest ; not without its mel- 
ancholy moral." ^ 

The prophets are claimed to have written nothing 
in general above the reach of human faculties. The 
whole of the Old Testament is only a phantom of super- 
stition to scare us in our sleep.^ The statements of 
the evangelists have a very low degree of historical 
credibility. Miracles are not impossible, because God 
is omnipotent ; but our main difficulty is, that we can- 
not believe the accounts descriptive of them. The tes- 
timony and not the miracle is at fault. Inspiration is 
not at all peculiar to the Scriptures. All nations have 
had their inspiration ; this is a natural result of the 
perfection of God, for he does not change ; and the laws 
of mind are like himself, unchangeable. Inspiration, 
being similar to vision, must be everywhere the same 
thing in kind however much it differs in degree. 
The quantity of our inspiration depends upon the use 
we make of our faculties. He who has the most wis- 
dom, goodness, religion, and truth is the most inspired. 
This inspiration reveals itself in various forms, modified 
by country, character, education, peculiarity. Minos 
and Moses were inspired to make laws ; David, Pindar, 

- Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Eeligion^ pp. 333, 334. 
« Ibid. p. 350. 



570 



IIISTOKY OF EATIONALIS^r. 



Plato, John tlie Baptist, Gerson, Luther, Boehme, 
Fenelon, and Fox were all inspired men. The saci-a- 
ments of the Church were never designed to be perma- 
nent. In illustration of them, Parker sacrilegiously 
quotes, 

*' Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, 
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw ; 
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, 
A little louder, but as empty quite." 

The Christian Church is held to be a purely human 
mechanism, and the great defect of Protestantism is its 
limit of the power of private inspiration. God still in- 
spires men as much as ever, and is immanent in spirit as 
in space. This doctrine, which is Spiritualism, " relies 
on no church, tradition, or Scripture, as the last grand 
and infallible rule ; it counts these things teachers, if 
they teach, not masters ; helps, if they help us, not au- 
thorities. It relies on the divine presence in the soul 
of man ; the eternal word of God, which is truth, as it 
speaks through the faculties he has given. It believes 
God is near the soul as matter to the sense ; thinks the 
canon of revelation not yet closed, nor God exhausted. 
It sees him in Nature's perfect work ; hears him in all 
true Scripture, Jewish or Phoenician ; stoops at the same 
fountain with Moses and Jesus, and is filled with living 
water. It calls God, Father, not King ; Christ, brother, 
not Redeemer ; Religion, nature. It loves and trusts, 
but does not fear. It sees in Jesus a man living man- 
like, highly gifted, and living with blameless and beau- 
tiful fidelity to God, stepping thousands of years before 
the race of man ; the profoundest religious genius God 
has raised up ; whose words and works help us to form 
and develop the native idea of a complete religious 
man. But he lived for himself ; died for himself ; 



INFLUElSrCE OF SKEPTICISM. 



571 



worked out his own salvation, and we must do the same, 
for one man cannot live for another more than he can 
eat or sleep for him. It is not the personal Christ but 
the spii'it of Wisdom, Holiness, Love that creates the 
well-being of man ; a life at one with God. The di- 
vine incarnation is in all mankind." * 

Such is the faith avowed and enforced by Theodore 
Parker. It goes but little beyond a belief in God's ex- 
istence and general participation in human life. It is 
sometimes diflScult to distinguish his views of Deity 
from Pantheism ; but on more than one occasion be ex- 
pressed his total dissent from the peculiarity of the He- 
gelian system. He holds that all we see about us and 
feel within us testifies of God. Neither speculative 
nor practical atheism can produce good in the world ; 
we must believe in God's existence, else we have no 
power whatever to explain the harmony in nature, prov- 
idence in individual and national life, existence and im- 
mortality of the soul, and the suffering to which we fall 
heir.^ But Theism clears up every difficulty, and sheds 
its light upon all departments of human life. This 
alone can overthrow the popular orthodox theology and 
enthrone the religion of the Absolute, or true Spiritual- 
ism in its stead. 

It is a question of grave importance how far the 
skepticism of Unitarianism, Universalism, and Pantheism 
has been influential upon the American Church, and how 
great is the number of those who have become more or 
less tinctured with the Rationalism of the last forty years' 
importation. Parker claimed that the liberal or Ration- 
alistic thinkers were largely on the increase ; but he also 
informs us that the translation by himself of De Wette's 

* Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Religion, pp. 477, 478. 

^ Sermons of Theism, Atheism, and Popular Theology, pp. 51-55. 



572 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



hiirodiiction to the Old Testament^ not only proved a 
financial failure, but that it has had " no recognition nor 
welcome in America ; that it has never had a friendly 
word said for it in any American journal." ^ Skepticism 
has been proclaimed principally by public lectures, and, 
in this form, has made little pretension to logical, exeget- 
ical, or metaphysical power. Youths have manifested a 
decided taste for the works of Carlyle, Emerson, and 
Pai ker, Avhile Phases of Faith was for a time one of 
the most thum])-\vorn of all the volumes of our circu- 
lating: libraries. Yet American Rationalism still lacks 
consistency and system. 

The history of Rationalism proves that the evil 
is of slow and insidious growth. The young are most 
susceptible of its influence. The Sunday Schools of 
the various evangelical Churches are usually supplied 
with large libraries of religious books. But many 
works of pernicious tendency have been known to find 
a place upon shelves designed for better service. 

A juvenile publication of most skeptical character 
has probably been read by many children whose par- 
ents had taught them that all Scripture is given by 
inspiration of God.^ This neat and attractive little 
volume is worthy of the disciples of Paulus and Semler. 
It is an advocate, under the most fascinating garb, of 
the very Rationalism which now threatens the American 
Church. The author claims that the patriarchal history 
is made up of little scraps of poetry ; the fall of our 
first parents was their seeing a dark veil one day in 
their wandering, and they, in consequence thereof, 
went out of the pleasant place where they had been 
dwelling ; the deluge was simply a metaphorical de- 

* Weiss, Life amd Correspo-ndence of Theodore ParJcer^ vol. i, p. 402. 
■ Stories of the Patriarchs^ by Eev. 0. B. Frothingham. Boston, 1864. 



"LIBEEAL GHEISTIAIOTY." 



573 



scription of tlie increase of evil among men ; the ark 
was only a mystical vessel typifying faith, truth, and 
other correctives of sorrow and sin ; there never was a 
single man Noah, who put all those creatures into a boat 
and saved himself;" no sacrifice appeared to Abraham 
when about to offer Isaac, but " his lifted arm seems to 
be seized as by the hand of an angel ; " the crossing of 
the Eed Sea by Israel, and the destruction of Pharoah 
and his host, were the natural results of tide and 
storm ; the bitter waters were sweetened by a friend- 
ly weed that grew close at hand ; the speaking of 
Balaam's ass was only the twirling of his long ears and 
loud braying ; and the walls of Jericho fell merely by 
the natural force of loud, fearless, and honest speaking, 
—just as West India Slavery tumbled down by the 
agency of the noble voices that thundered, trumpet-like, 
in righteous indignation against it. 

Mr. Frothingham also sounded the high praises of 
"Liberal Christianity" for those who have passed the 
age of childhood. Many of his Unitarian brethren did 
not agree with his radical Rationalism. Belonging to 
the extreme Left Wing, he held that it was the province 
of liberal Christians to slough off the absurd doctrines 
then prevalent^ — "not to remould the age, — to recast it, 
to regenerate it, to cross it or struggle with it, but to 
penetrate its meaning, enter into its temper, sympathize 
^th its hopes, blend with its endeavors. The life of 
the time appoints the creed of the time, and modifies 
the establishment of the time. The great mark of our 
generation is a deep faith in the soul s power to take 
care of itself, and a desire that it may exercise that 
power to the utmost." ^ 

^ New Religion of Nature, sermon to Alumni of Cambridge Divinity 
School, ^ee Frieiid of Progress, l^oYQmher, l^QL 
88 ^ 



574 



HISTORY OF IIATION.^LISM. 



John W. Draper and John Fiske have been recent 
leading writers on science moi'e or less skeptical, espe- 
cially the former in his History of the Conflict between 
Science and Religion (1875), a work whose title is not 
justified by its contents. It is in the main a well- 
founded accusation against Roman Catholicism for ita 
stubborn and stupid opposition to astronomical and 
cosmogonical discovery. The author gives a narrow 
and partial picture of the intellectual conditions and 
activities of media3v^al Europe, showing the worst side 
of the ecclesiastical life of the period. In more mod- 
erate tone he attacks the modern church and admits 
that conflict is too strong a term to describe the just 
and fair tests applied in every forum of thought to 
every new candidate claiming entrance into the realm 
of clearly established fact. John Fiske had ])een foi* 
tliirty years up to the time of his sudden death, July 4, 
1901, the vigorous and ])opular exponent of the S2)en- 
cerian philosoj^hy in America, though his Idea of God 
and Destiny of Man ^ and his later Througli, Nature to 
God contained a positive and helpful theism far in ad- 
vance of Spencer. He has distinctively maintained that 
to deny personal immortality and an intelligent Creator 
is to lead to ''permanent intellectual confusion." 

Benjamin Franklin Cocker's Theistic Conception of 
the Woi'ld (1875) has furnished a splendid reservoir of 
reasons for belief in the Christian foundations and a 
lofty and cosmical treatment of the great basal prin- 
ciples of the universe of matter and of mind. Asa 
Gray, in his Natural Science and Heligion (1880), 
stands as an able advocate of theistic evolution. Ar- 
nold Guyot, of Princeton, gives one of the best of books 
on the harmony of modern science with the outlines of 
the Mosaic account of creation in his Creation (1884)^ 



MORE RECENT AUTHORS AND CONFLICTS. 



575 



Charles Hodge's What is Darwinism f (1884) shows 
the atheistic trend of the chief writers on evolution. 
Alexander Winchell was a prolific writer on evolution 
and a strong defender of its theistic possibilities. His 
ablest book was probably World Life ; or Comparative 
Geology (1883), a treatise on cosmogony. 

Horace Bushnell in 1874 published his Forgiveness 
and Law, Grounded in Principles Interpreted hy Hu- 
man Analogies^ in which he bases on human intuition 
of right and justice his rejection of a substitutive atone- 
ment. He inter})i'eted the Scriptures which favor the 
theory of substitution as intensive orientalisms not to 
be taken with a literal meaning. Newman Smyth's The 
Orthodoxy of To-day (1881), though rather obscure at 
times, is brilliant and. attractive. He follows Bushnell 
as to the atonement, holds a view of justification similar 
to that of Coleridge, and teaches restorationism. 

Joseph Cook, chiefly through the Boston Monday 
Lectures (1877-1880), but also by his frequent contri- 
butions to the periodical pi'ess and his public addresses, 
w^as a doughty and efficient champion of conservative 
theology and philosophy for two decades. Philhps 
Brooks was a mighty factor in rehabilitating the evan- 
gelical theology of New England during the closing 
quarter of the nineteenth century. The effects of his 
powerful ministry were wrought out through the im- 
passioned declaration of the great truths of the New 
Testament embodied in his own strong personality and 
adapted to the thought and needs of the times. 

Charles Augustus Briggs, in his Biblical Stvdy: Its 
Principles, Methods, and History (1883), holds that 
the Bible contains rather than is in its entirety the 
word of God and that the inspired Scripture gives its 
own evidence to the soul. His inaugural address as 



576 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



Edward Rohinson Professor of Biblical Theology in 
the Union Theological Seminary (1891) contains a 
statement of his views and positions.^ 

George T. Ladd, of Yale Uiiivei'sity, brought out in 
1883 his Doctrine of Severed Scripture. His position 
is that of a middle ground — between the radical and 
the extreme conservatives, and in general may be said 
to be that described as maintaining that the Bible 
contains rather than is the word of God. 

William Henry Green and Henry M. Harman were 
among the most scholai'ly and vigorous defenders of 
the inspiration and historical character of the Scriptures. 
The Pronaos to Holy Writ (1891), by Isaac M. Wise, 
from the Jewish standpoint, is a telling blow against 
the destructive critics. William Nast's Gospel Records 
(1878) and Ezra N\}^o\]^ Atiihorsliip of the Fourth 
Gosp^el (1889) were notable contributions to the con- 
servative criticism of the Bible. James W. Mendenhall, 
who died in the jirime of manhood, did much to clarify 
the air that was thick a]>out the contestants in the 
battle over inspiration and biblical criticism. His 
editorials on the higher criticism, published in 1889- 
1892 in \X\^ Methodist Heview^ Xew York, form a strong 
l^arrier to the inroads of Rationalism into the field of 
biblical study, and vindicate the scientific openness of 
mind possessed by the progressive students of God's 
word w^ho find it unnecessary to reject the divine w^heat 
in order to sift out the human chaff. 

In every field of religious and theological thought 
clear-visioned and keen-minded Christian thinkers and 
scholars are leading the American Church to evangel- 
ical triumphs greater than have yet been seen. 

^ The BMe, tlie Churchy and the Reason, Three Great Fountains of Divine 
Authority. New York, 1892. 

i 



CHAPTER XXV. 



INDIRECT SERVICE OF SKEPTICISM— PRESENT OUTLOOK. 

The most important successes of man are born of 
his severest trials and most persistent struggles. Some- 
times principles have required the combats of centuries 
before they become the possession of a heroic people. 
The value of the prize may in most cases be accurately 
estimated by the length of time and the outlay of effort 
expended for its attainment. Men of easy faith," says a 
wise observer of human deeds, " and sanguine hope, have 
sometimes, after one great commotion and change, joy- 
ously assured themselves that this would suffice. The 
grand evil is removed ; we shall now happily and fast 
advance with a clear scene before us. But after a 
while, to their surprise and dismay, another commotion 
and dismay have perhaps carried the whole affair back, 
apparently, to the same state as before. Recollect the 
history of the Reformation in this land ; begun by 
Henry VIH., established, it was gladly assumed, by his 
son. ^ But that youth dies, and then we have the instant 
return of Popery, in all its triumph, fury, and revenge. 
After a while Queen Mary departs, and all pious souls 
exult in liberation and Protestantism. But then again, 
in Elizabeth's time, there comes a half-papist, severe 
spiritual tyranny. Later down, after the overthrow of 
the tyrant Charles, there arose for the first time, a pros- 



578 



HISTORY OF EATIONALISM. 



pect of real religious liberty. But his son resumes the 
throne, and all such liberty was abolished, and so con- 
tinued long; and another revolution was required that 
religious faith and worship might be fi'ee." ^ 

But when the English Reformation did come it was 
worth all its cost. The Church would not barter it to- 
day for the commercial value of continents, — no, not if 
she were told that the refusal would cost her whole cen- 
turies of po*verty and sorrow, many more martyrdoms, 
and a second home in the catacombs. 

The v^arious conflicts with infidelity have been scarce- 
ly less terrible than the determined efforts made for the 
preservation of the faith of the Gospel against the per- 
secutions of the Roman Emperors and the popes of the 
inquisitorial period. For there are two kinds of suffer- 
ing in defense of truth ; that manifested by endurance 
of the body when physical pain is inflicted, and that 
which the mind undergoes when plausible error makes 
its fascinating appeal. And he who can resist the pre- 
tenses of infidelity and remain pure amid the general 
waste of faith has moral power enough to attest his 
love of truth by dying in its behalf. God takes note 
of all offerings which we bring, whether it be a lace- 
rated body in an age of persecution, or a sorely-tried 
but yet purely-kept conscience in a period of devastating 
irreligion. The same benignant Father who welcomed 
the sacrifice of the unblemished heifer was ready to re- 
ceive the humbler offering of a pair of turtle doves. 

One of the general principles on which we based the 
present historical inquiry was the undesigned but real 
service rendered the cause of truth and the Church by 
skepticism. It is yet too soon to prove the validity of 
this position in reference to the present manifestations 

* Jolm Foster, Broadmead Lectures^ vol. i, p. 309. 



GOOD OUT OF EVIL. 



579 



of Rationalistn in England and the United States. They 
Are yet incomplete, and not until a system of doubt 
has completed its cycle are we enabled to determine 
the evil which it has inflicted and the general benefit 
which it has indirectly accomplished. When we look, 
therefore, at the developed types of error which have 
arisen and made their impress on the public mind, we 
are forced to the conclusion that, as God holds truth 
in his hand and makes it minister to the good of his 
cause, so does he possess complete control of error, and 
sometimes causes its wildest vagaries to contribute to the 
advancement of those interests which they were design- 
ed to subvert. The promoters of the evil are none the 
less responsible, though their w^orks terminated in an 
unexpected issue. " It must needs be that offenses come ; 
but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." 

This principle of God's moral government has long 
been denied a recognition. The purely literary historian 
has here been in advance of the student of religious 
events, for he has conceded and defended the principle 
when tracing the career of military chieftains, who aimed 
solely at the conquest of nations and the increase of 
temporal power. He has shown how the devastations 
of an Alexander, a Hannibal, and a Napoleon have 
been the unexpected instruments of great popular bless- 
ings. Ecclesiastical historians have frequently regard- 
ed all skeptical tendencies as evil in all their conse- 
quences ; but it is a far more exalted view of God's 
ceaseless care of the interests of his Church, to consider 
him as the All-powerful and All-loving, causing even 
the wrath of man to praise him." 

A glance at the various departments of theology 
w^hich have received most attention within the last 
century will prove that Rationalism has been the un- 



580 



HISTORY OF liATIONALISM. 



designed means of contributing to tlieir advancement 
The faith of the public teacher determines the fiiith and 
practice of the masses ; and those who are the commis- 
sioned expounders of truth for the people have to-day 
a more substantial basis of theolon:ical literature than 
theii' predecessors possessed Ijcfore Rationalism appeared 
in (lermany. As some of the grandest cathedrals of 
Europe, originally built b}' the Roman Catholics, and 
designed by them for tlie perpetual dissemination of the 
doctrines of Popeiy, are now the slu'ines of Protestant 
worship, so liavc those weapons which were shaped for 
tierce assaults uj)()n inspii-ation been wielded in its de- 
fense. " Rationalism was not to be simply ignored," 
says Scliaff, " but in the hand of that Providence which 
allows nothing to take place in vain must serve the 
purpose of bringing to a new form the old, which, in 
its contracted sphere — that of mere understanding — it 
had profanely demolished. By this means a fi-eer ac- 
tivity and fuller development were secured, and that 
want which lies at the root of all Rationalism was sup- 
plied ; namely, that religious truth shall not be con- 
fronted ^vith the subjective spirit in the form of mere 
outward authority, but, in an inward way, become fully 
reconciled to it in the form of conviction and certainty."^ 
The Rationalists at one time deemed the criticism 
of the Scriptures their strongest fortress. This is evi- 
dent from their numerous works on the authenticity of 
the biblical books, and on the text itself. They perused 
the Church Fathers for corroborative opinions, applied 
themselves to the oriental languages with a zeal worthy 
of a better purpose, traveled through countries men- 
tioned in the Bible in order to study local customs and 
popular traditions, and searched the testimony of both 

* What is Church EUtory f p. 15, 



CHUECH HISTORY. 



581 



ancient and modem writers witli an enthusiasm seldom 
surpassed. Their purpose was, to maintain the human 
character of the Bible. Now what do we behold? 
Those researches have been employed by evangelical 
critics for a higher end, and are powerful auxiliaries 
in the defense of the divine authority of the Scrip- 
tures. The Hebrew learning of Gesenius, for example, 
is the most available instrument in the hands of the 
orthodox theologian in his study of the Old Testament. 
The most critical and accurate of the Rationalists have, 
in almost every case, told us some truth which the pro- 
fessed friends of revelation had not possessed, and which 
the Church might have been compelled to seek for 
centuries without success. 

Church history was crude and ill-written before the 
Rationalists expended then* toil and learning upon it. 
They investigated the fountains ; made the storm-beaten 
monuments, old coins, and medals disclose their long- 
kept secrets ; and threaded the labyrinths of secular 
history, written in almost every European language, in 
order that nothing serviceable to their cause might be 
lost. As an illustration of the impetus imparted to this 
sphere of theological science, we may state that between 
the years 1839 and 1841 there were published in Ger- 
many over five hundred works on church history alone.^ 
"Almost every theologian of any name," says Schaff, "has 
devoted a portion at least of his strength to some depart- 
ment of church history. Besides this, however, it is 
found to receive the homage of all other departments,— 
Exegesis, Introduction, Ethics, Practical Theology, etc., 
in this respect : that for any work to be complete it is 
felt necessary that it should, in the way of introduction, 
present a history of the subject with which it is em- 

* Winer, Handbuch der Theologischen Wissenschaft, 1838-1842. 



582 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



ployed and have also due regard to views different from 
its own. Let any one look into any of the later com- 
mentaries by Bleek, Harless, Tholiick, Steiger, Hengsten- 
berg, Fritzsche, and Riickert ; or into the dogmatic 
works of Twesten, Nitzsch, Hase, and tlie monograph 
of Julius Muller on sin, and he will soon learn how 
entirely the whole present theology is pervaded with 
historical material ft'om beo-innino; to end." ^ 

In the conception of church history as a science, 
the Rationalists also displayed a wisdom which had 
ever been wanting. Rationalism," says Schaff again, 
" has been of undeniable service to church histoiy. In 
the first place, it exercised the l^oldest criticism, placing 
many things in a new light, and opening the way for a 
more free and unprejudiced judgment. Then again it 
assisted in bringing out the true conception of history 
itself, though rather in a mere negative way. Almost 
all previous historians, Protestant as well as Catholic, 
had looked upon the history of heresie'S as essentially 
motion and change, while they had regarded the church 
doctrine as somethins: once for all settled and un- 
changeable ; a view which cannot possibly stand the 
test of impartial inquiry. For though Christianity it- 
self, the saving truth of God, is always the same, and 
needs no change, yet this can by no means be affirmed 
of the apprehension of this truth by the human mind 
in the different ages of the Church, as is at once suffi- 
ciently evident from the great difference between Cath- 
olicism and Protestantism ; and within the latter, from 
the distinctions of Lutheranism, Zwinglianism, and Cal- 
vinism. But Rationalism now discovered fluctuation, 
motion, change, in the Church, as well as in the sects ; 
thus taking the first step towards the idea of organic 

^ What is Church History ? p. 17. 



ESTIMATE OF CHEIST's LIFE. 



583 



development, on wMcli the latest German historiog- 
raphy is founded." ^ We deem this testimony in favor 
of our position as of no ordinary value, coming as it 
does Irom one so intimately acquainted with the issues 
involved, and yet in no sympathy with the skepticism 
of any age. 

The Eationalistic divines have also been the indirect- 
means of a better estimate of the life of Christ. The 
replies to the work of Strauss present, as we have be- 
fore intimated, the most complete portrait of the career 
of the Messiah ever drawn by uninspired authority. 
The symmetry, scope, power, and sympathy which re- 
vealed themselves through his entire ministry are so 
described by Neander, and those in harmony with him, 
that their representation of the Messiah must ever per- 
form an invaluable service in theological literature. 
Had the attack never been made we would not now 
enjoy the benefit resulting from the counter-blow. 
" These replies," says Schwarz, " constitute an impor- 
tant literature of themselves, in which scarcely any the- 
ological name of importance is absent, and in which 
many obscure pastors from all parts of Germany have 
brought the fire-bucket of their knowledge in order to 
extinguish the flame that threatened to consume them 
and their village-churches together with the historical 
basis of Christianity. . . . Concerning the theo- 
logical discussion originated by Strauss, our attention 
is turned toward those works which undertake to an- 
swer specifically the critical questions under considera- 
tion. His celebrated work was the signal for a totally 
new gospex criticism. A succession of works appeared 
at but brief intervals that discussed in a far more thor- 
ou^h method than Strauss had done those important 

' History of the Apostolic ChurcK p. 80. 



584 



HISTOKY OF RATIONALISM. 



questions concerning the relations of tlie gospels to eacb 
other, their signification, age, and authenticity." ^ 

So, too, has tlie criticism of the apostolic age by the 
Tubingen school aroused the friends of evangelical 
Christianity to inquire into the same period, and see 
whether their own ground was really defensible. It 
was a fortunate day for them when their attention was 
directed thither. For the church enjoys thereby a much 
clearer conception of all those great movements that had 
their origin in the time of the apostles, of the relations 
in which those men stood to the Divine Founder, of the 
gradual dissemination of the gospel, of the general con- 
dition of the infiint church, and of its interpretation of 
the doctrines promulgated by Christ, than could have 
1)eeu acquired by all the ordinary methods of investiga- 
tion. 

As from the earlier skeptical onslaughts, so from the 
later popular lives of Jesus by Strauss and Renan, no 
permanent evil results have come. These men wrote 
for the masses, and their appeal was to the plain mind. 
They portrayed Christ in such a light that even the 
least intelligent might be brought into living sympathy 
with his humanity. They described him as a man like 
ourselves. They wrote from a wrong standpoint, but 
their labors suggested to evangelical theologians the 
pressing necessity for a popular view of Christ as our 
Redeemer. The people needed to see him not as far 
off, but near at hand, the Friend and Brother of the 
humblest of his followers. Neander was the first to 
meet Strauss, and this he did by writing a positive 
biography, taking in the refutation of Strauss as an 
incident. Neander has been followed by many in a 
series of able and inspiring attempts to portray the 

^ GescMclite der Neuesten Theologie. Second Edition, pp. 105, 152. 



EECENT BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 



585 



Master. Ullmanu, Lange, Riggenbach, Van Oosterzee, 
Keim, Weiss, Ewald, Pressense, Ellicott, Geikie, Farrar, 
Seeley, Stalker, Hanna, Parker, Edersheim, Andrews, 
Crosby, Beeclier, Deems, and Abbott have essayed the 
same task— and all with some fruitful results. Yet the 
inexhaustible theme remains and must always remain 
the perennial subject of thought and study to the 
thinkers and leaders of the generations. After all, the 
skeptics have builded " more wisely than they knew." 
Strauss and Schenkel and Hase and Renan made 
colossal mistakes, but the sequel has been a positive 
blessing to all Christendom. 

Of present-day biblical criticism there are two 
schools, the conservative and the Rationalistic, each 
being capable of subdivision into the two grades of 
ultraists and moderates, with a possible mediating 
group between the latter in each school. Of the con- 
servative or orthodox school it has been truly said " it 
holds to that which has been attained, but is also press- 
ing on to that which may be discovered. Believing 
enough to be conservative, it is inquiring enough to 
be progressive." On the other hand, the Rationalistic 
school rejects or denies the fundamental claims of 
Christianity, such as the divinity, the incarnation, and 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the supernatural 
or miraculous, and any properly predictive or Messianic 
passages in Scripture. They begin with theories as 
postulates, simply reason on their mingled facts and 
theories, and thus in the name of reason exclude the 
supernatural element. Mendenhall has well summed 
up the marks of a true biblical criticism as, " first, scien- 
tific in method and result; second, biblical in spirit, 
scope, and influence; third, historic in tests and ma- 
terial ; fourth, evangelical in tone, character, and form ; 



586 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



fifth, rational in its use of facts, non-theoretic in its 
inquiries, and authoritative in its ultimate decisions." 
Such critical study of the biblical records will prove 
in the future as it has in the past a positive help to 
Christian life and culture, and devout reverence for the 
high and holy truths that emanate from and center in 
the Son of God, the Christ of history, the divine Healer 
and Brother of men. 

The peril once apprehended from the skeptical 
scientific school is now seen to have been more imai^i- 
nary than real. Darwin, Buckle, Draper, Youmans, and 
others have striven diligently to impress upon the pub- 
lic mind the opinion that there is an antagonism be- 
tween science and revelation of such a character as to 
render Christianity a useless appendage to society. But 
that ()])inion has been ])rought to naught both by the 
saner piocesses of later scientists and the welcome 
extended to true science by the thinking church. 

Du Bois-Reymond, sui'passed by no scientist of re- 
cent years in the depth of his researches, gifted with a 
philosophical mind, has escaped the common error of 
those scientists who look only upon matter and its 
properties, and thus become incapable of reflecting 
thoughtfully on the origin of things and the limits of 
the visible. Throuc^hout his career he was a defender 
of monism ; yet few have seen the difficulties of the 
monistic position more clearly than he. In his lecture 
on The Limits of Our Knoivledge of Nature he speaks 
with the language of an expert and concludes his 
remarks on some of the impenetrable mysteries of 
nature with the straightforward confession, " we do 
not know;" and after discussing the possibility of 
solving these mysteries he announces the more star- 
tling conclusion, ^' we shall not know." This surrender 



NEGATION THE GOAL OF SKEPTICISM. 



587 



naturally called forth severe invectives from those 
naturalists whose confidence in their own conclusions 
regarding the all-sufficiency of matter to explain the 
phenomena of life, and whose impatience at any recog- 
nition of the theistic view lead them to statements that 
border on madness. So disparaging to monism w^ere 
his admissions that theists became hopeful of securing 
Du Bois-E,eymond as a champion of their views. This 
hope, however, w^as vain. In another lecture, entitled 
The Seven World- Problems^ he more fully develops 
this thought of the necessary limitations of our knowl- 
edge and closes with the significant statement that, so 
far as the deepest problems of our existence are con- 
cerned, there is left but one watchword for modern 
science, and that is Duhiternus — Let us doubt. 

Thus skeptic philosophy has again run its course 
and found its only legitimate goal. The least it can 
do is — doubt. And where we doubt everything we 
must finally doubt that we doubt, and we are left to 
grope in the darkness of our mental w^anderings with 
neither ray nor line to lead us out. From a philosophy 
which thus acknowledges its own weakness by clothing 
its final deliverance in the form of a negative, a posi- 
tive Christianity has nothing to fear. Yet the day will 
come when science with its glory and strength will cast 
its lustre upon all the pages of divine truth. 

Present conditions are full of hope. In every land 
of Christendom signs indicate that Eationalistic thought 
has run its full course and worked out its doleful mis- 
sion, if mission it may be termed. The pulpit is every- 
where recognizing the necessity of preaching the Gospel 
without the sterilizing adjuncts of dogma and theory. 
It is rapidly separating the kernel of biblical teaching 
from the shell of creed and offering only the former to 



588 



IIISTOKY OF KATIONALIS.>[. 



hungering humanity. The watchword everywhere is 
— Back to Christ. We may never again preach the 
Christ who was the ideal of theologians during the 
Middle iVges. Then the deity of Christ was empha- 
sized until his humanity had almost vanished from 
view. The Ritschlian theology has emphasized his 
Immanity to the detriment of his deity; but the church 
of the future will, if all signs do not deceive, swing 
l)ack to the position where Christ as the divinely- 
human and the humanly-divine will be held up to view 
in a truly Johannean spirit. 

The trend of theoloo-ic thought and discussion 
through the nineteenth century has been more and 
more to the Christocentric basis. The emphasis, in- 
stead of being put upon some great human leader of 
thought like Augustine, Calvin, or Wesley, has been 
properly replaced upon the person and teachings of 
Christ. Even the doctrines of the New Testament 
epistles, notably those of Paul, are being made to 
magnify the authority and office of the Master. More- 
over, the trend of the century's skepticism has not only 
been a i-evulsion from the dreary and dismal practical 
results of doubt, but also toward a seriously ethical, 
almost a semireligious, stage, approaching though in a 
shad-owy and perhaps imitative w^ay the genuine fruits 
of a spiritual and man-loving Christianity, and thus 
paying unconscious homage to the very truth it once 
questioned. The moral quality and responsibility of 
human action is thus clearly set forth by Thomas H. 
Huxley : " Social progress means the checking of the 
cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it 
of another which may be called th^ ethical process. . . . 
The cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral 
ends. The imitation of it by man is inconsistent with 



ARCHEOLOGY AND SCIEXCE. 



589 



the first principles of ethics. Let us understand once 
for all that the ethical progress of society depends not 
on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running 
away from it, but in combating it." 

Meanwhile the true way to meet the writings of 
skeptics in the church is by calm and intelligent re- 
plies to their charges. Against the works and influ- 
ence of infidelity among the masses the exact scientific 
method of defense is the one that promises the greatest 
success. The intellectual and moral results of skepti- 
cism form the strongest barriers to its continuance. 
It condemns itself in the ruin and waste to which it 
leads. It always tears down and never builds up. 
The most powerful apology for evangelical Chris- 
tianity lies in the daily walk and spiritual influence 
of true Christians. 

At no time in the history of the world have the 
various methods of battling with infidelity been em- 
p)loyed more eftectively than at present. The deepest 
researches in science and archaeology are daily con- 
tributing in a wonderful measure to the vindication 
both of Christianity as a religion and of the records 
of its recognized sources. A strong reaction has set in 
against the old Wolffian school of criticism. Schlie- 
mann, through his excavations in Asia Minor, has 
proved beyond question that Troy existed and that 
the story of the Trojan war was in the main history 
and not fiction. Rogers, in his History of Babylonia 
and Assyria^ has told us the story of how excava- 
tions on the sites of ancient Babylon, Nineveh, and 
other prominent places in Old Testament history have 
brought to light a wealth of material that promises to 
corroborate in every main particular the history of the 
Jews and surrounding nations as found recorded in the 




39 



590 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 



books of the Bible. Hilprecht, of the University of 
Pennsylvania, is diligently engaged in prosecuting the 
researches thus begun, and Sayce continues his inform- 
ing summaries on the teachings of the monuments. 
Every weapon is gradually wrested from the hands of 
the infidel and turned against his falsities. The exact 
sciences of modern times will yet demand as a basis for 
their own best workings and results the existence of 
the God of the Scriptures and lead the truth -seeking 
mind to the confession that Christ, the Christ of the 
Scriptures, is the Son of God and the only Saviour 
of men. 

'* Last eve I paused beside a blacksmith's door, 
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime; 
Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor 

Old hammers worn with beating years of time. 

' IIow many anvils have you had,' said I, 

' To wear and batter ;ill these hammers so ? ' 
* Just one,' said he; then said with twinkling eye, 
'The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.' 

*' And so, thought I, the anvil of God's word 
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon. 
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard. 
The anvil is unharmed, the hammers gone." 



APPENDIX. 
LITEMTUEE OE EATIONALISM. 



I— GERMANY— HOLLAND— GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

AuBERLEN, C. A.— Die Gottliche Offenbarung. 2 Biinde, Basel, 
1861-64. Transl. by A. B. Paton. Edinb., 1867. 

AusERUNGEN lib. Renan, Strauss u. ahnliche Biicher. Anon. Tiib., 
1864. 

Bachmann, Ph. — Die personliche Heilserfahrung des Christen und 
ihre Bedeutung fiir den Glauben. Leipz., 1898. 

Balmes, J. — Briefe an einem Zweifler, aus d. Span, iibersetzt, von 
F. Louriser. Regensb., 1864. 

Baltzer, O. — Beitrag zur geschichte des christologisclien Dogmas. 
Leipz., 1898. 

Barth, D. — Die Hauptprobleme des Lebens Jesu. Eine geschicbt- 
liche Untersuchung. Giiterslob, 1894. 

Baur, P. C. — Die Tubinger Schule und ihre Stellung zur Gegenwart. 
Tiib., 1859, Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ, his Life and 
Works, his Epistles and Teachings. A Contribution to a Crit- 
ical History of Primitive Christianity. Ed. by Dr. E. Zeller. 
2 vols., Lond., 1873-75. 

Beitrage zur Forderung christlicher Theologie. Schlatter und 
Cremer. Giitersloh. An excellent series. We mention espe- 
cially: In 1898: W. Hadorn, Die Bntstehung des Markus-Evan- 
geliums; and in 1899: W. Liitgert, Die Jonneische Christologie; 
K. K. Bornhauser, Das Recht des Bekenntnisses zur Auferste- 
hung des Fleisches; W. Liitgert, Geschichtlicher Sinn und Kirch- 
lichkeit. 

Bender, W. — Schleiermacher's Theologie mit ihren philosophischen 
Grundlagen dargestellt. 2 Bande, Mtinch., 1876-78. 

Beyschlag, W. — Ueber das "Leben Jesu" v. Renan. Halle a. S., 1864. 
Das Leben Jesu. 1893. Die neutestamentliche Theologie. Halle, 
1896. 

BocKSHAMMER, G. F.— Off eubaruug und Theologie. Stuttg., 1822. 
BoHME, C. F.— Christliches Henotikon. Halle, 1827. Die Sache des 

rationalen Supranaturalismus, gepriift und erklart. Neust., 

1823 

BoHMER, J.— Brennende Zeit- und Streitfragen der Kirche. Giessen, 
1898. 

Bretschneider, K. G. — Ueber die Grundprincipien der Evang. Theol- 
ogie. Altenb., 1832. Zwei Sendschreiben an einem Staatsmann. 
Leipz., 1830. 

Brons\t:ld, a. W. — Oorzaken der verbreiding van het rationalisme 
in ous land, sinds de laaste jaren der vorigen eeuw. Rotterdam, 
1862. 

Brunner, S.— Der Atheist Renan u. Sein Evangelium. Regensb., 

Bucher, J.— Das Leben Jesu v. Dr. Fr. Strauss nach der neuen r. 
das Deutsche Volk," beab. Augsb., 1864. 



592 



APPENDIX. 



Cassel, p. — Ueber Kenan's Leben Jesu. Berlin, 1864. 
Chantepie de la Saussaye. — La Crise Religieuse en Hollande. 
Leyde, 1860. 

Christlieb, Theodore. — Modern Doubt and Christian Belief. A 
Series of Apologetic Lectures addressed to Earnest Seekers after 
Truth. Transl. by H. U. Weitbrecht, and edited by T. L. Kings- 
bury. Lond. and N. Y., 1875. 

Clausen, H. N. — Katholicismus u. Protestantismus. 3 Biinde. Transl. 
by Fries. Neust., latest edition, 1828. 

The author, a moderate RationaUst, attempts in vain to Identify Protestantism 
and Rationalism. 

Clemen, C. F. W. — Die Rationalisten sind doch Christen. Altenb., 
1829. 

CoLLN, D. G. K. vox, UND ScHULTz, Dav. — Uebcr Theologische Lehr- 
freiheit auf den Evangelischen Universitiiten. Breslau, 1830. 

CoRNiL. A. — Ludwig Feuerbach u. Seine Stellung zur Religion u. 
Philosophie d. Gegenwart. Frankfurt a. M., 1851. 

Da Costa, I.— The Four Witnesses. Holland, 1851. 

This work relates to the Four Evangelists, and is a reply to Strauss. 

Deissman, G. a. — Die neutestamentliche Formel, "in Christo Jesu," 
untersucht. Marburg. 1892. 

Delitzsch, Fuanz. — Messianic Prophecies in Historical Succession. 
Transl. by Samuel I. Curtiss. N. Y., 1891. Commentary on 
Isaiah. 2 vols., Edinb., 1867. 

Deutingek, M. — Renan u. das Wunder. Miinch., 1864. 

De Wette, W. M. L. — Ueber der Verfall der Protestant. Kirche in 
Deutschland, und die Mittel, ihr wieder aufzuhelfen. Reforma- 
tionsalm. 1817, S. 296 ff. Religion und Theologie. Berlin, 1817. 
Theodor oder des Zweifier's Weihe. 2 Biinde, Berlin, 1822. 

DiESTELMANN, Tii. — Beleuchtuug d. Lebens Jesu f. das Deutsche 
Volk, V. D. F. Strauss. Hannover, 1864. 

DoRNER, L A. — History of the Development of the Doctrine of the 
Person of Christ. With a Review of the Controversies on the Sub- 
ject in Britain since the Middle of the Seventeenth Century. 
Transl. by W. Lindsay Alexander and D. W. Simon. 5 vols., 
Edinb., 1861-64. History of Protestant Theology. Particularly 
in Germany, viewed according to its Fundamental Movements, 
and in connection with the Religious, Moral, and Intellectual 
Life. Transl. by G. Robson and Sophia Taylor. Edinb., 1871. 
A System of Christian Doctrine. Transl. by Alfred Cave and J. 
S. Banks. 4 vols., Edinb., 1880-82. 

DuHM, B. — Theologie der Propheten als Grundlagen fiir die innere 
Entwickelungsgeschichte der Israelitischen Religion. Bonn, 
1878. Ziel und Methode der theologischen Wissenschaft. Basel, 
1889. 

Engelhardt. M. — Schenkel und Strauss. Erlangen, 1864. 

EwALD, G. H. A. — The History of Israel. Transl. from the German. 

Ed. by R. Martineau and J. E. Carpenter. 8 vols., Lond., 1869-76. 
Falke, R. — Die geschichtlichen Thatsachen des Neuen Testaments. 

Gutersloh, 1893. 

Feldmann, T. C. — Der Wahre Christus u. sein rechtes Symbol. Al- 
tona, 1865. 

Feuerbach, F. L. — Das Wesen d. Glaubens im Sinne Luther's. Leipz., 
1844. 

Frank, Freiherr v. — Geschichte und Kritik der neueren Theologie, 
insbesondere der systematischen, seit Schleiermacher. Leipz., 
1898. 



APPENDIX. 



593 



Frei-Religiosen (die) in ihrer Blosse. Brandenb., 1862. 
Freppel, Prof. — Kritische Beleuchtung d. Ernst Renan'schen Schrift: 

Das Leben Jesii. Wien, 1864. 
Fricke, G. — Ueber Renan's Leben Jesu. Heidelb., 1864. 
Fritzsche, Ch. F. — De Rationalismo commentatt. II; in den opuscul. 

academ. Tur. 1846. 
Frost, W. — Das Leben d. Anti-Christus nach Ernst Renan. Wien, 

1864. 

FuLLKRUG, Gerh. — Der Gottesknecht des Deuterojesaja. Gottingen, 
1899. 

Gall, A. V. — Die Einheitlichkeit des Buches DanieL Giessen, 1895. 
Gebhard, F. H. — Die letzten Griinde des Rationalismus in einer 

Widerlegung der Briefe Zollichs. Arnst, 1822. 
Gexnrich, p. — Der Kampf um die Schrift in der deutscb-evangel- 

ischen Kirche des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Berlin, 1898. 
Gerber, J. H. — Supranominalismus, ein neues System der Theologie, 

Oder die endliche Vers(3hnung zwiscben Rationalismus und 

Supranaturalismus in wissenschaftliche Nothwendigkeit. Leipz., 

1843-44. 

Gerlach, H. — Gegen Renan, Leben Jesu. Berlin, 1864. 
Gess und Riggenbach. — Apologetische Beitrage. Basel, 1864. 
Glage, Max. — Ihr habt einen anderen Geist. Giitersloh, 1900. 
GoDET, Fr. — Einleitung in das Neue Testament. Hannover, 1894. 
Groen Van Prinsterer, G. — Le parti anti-revolutionaire et con- 

fessionel dans I'eglise reformee des Pays-Bas. Amsterdam, 1860. 
GuNKEL, H. — Scbopfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit Re- 

ligiongeschichtliche Untersuchungen ilber Gen. I. und Apok. 

Jobs. XII. Gottingen, 1895. 
GuRLiTT, J. Gfr. — Rede zur Empfehlung des Vernunftsgebrauch's bei 

dem Studium der Theologie. Hamb., 1822. 
Haar, B. ter. — Pictures from the History of the Reformation. 1855. 

A prize work, written to strengthen the faith of Protestants. 

Vorlesungen tiber Renan's "Leben Jesu." 1861. 
Haeckel, Ernst. — The Evolution of Man: a Popular Exposition of 

the Principal Points of Human Ontogeny and Philogeny. 2 vols., 

N. Y. and Lond., 1879. Monism as Connecting Religion and 

Science. The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science. Transl. 

by J. Gilchrist. N. Y., 1894. 
Haring. Theodor. — Das Bleibende im Glauben an Christus. Stuttg., 

1880. 

Haffner, p. L. — Die Deutsche Aufklarung. Mainz, 1864. 

Hagenbach, K. R. — Kirchengeschichte d. 18 und 19 Jahrhunderts. 
3 Aufl., Leipz., 1856. Die sogenannte Vermittelungstheologie. 
Ziirich, 1858. History of Doctrines. Revised Edinb. ed., with 
large additions. By Prof. H. B. Smith. N. Y., 1862. German 
Rationalism in its Rise, Progress, and Decline. Ed. and transl. 
by W. L. Gage and J. H. W. Stuckenberg. Edinb., 1865. 

Hahn, a. — De Rationalismi, qui dicitur, vera indole et qua cum 
naturalismo contineatur ratione. Lips., 1827. Ueber die Lage 
des Christenthums unserer Zeit, und das Verhaltniss der Christ- 
lichen Theologie zur Wissenschaft iiberhaupt. Leipz., 1832. 

Haneberg, D. B.— E. Renan's Leben Jesu beleuchtet. Regensb., 
1864. 

Hanne, J. W.— Rationalismus und spec. Theologie in Braunschweig. 

Braunschweig, 1838. 
Harms, C— Thesen Luther's mit andern 95 Satzen. Kiel, 1817. 

"Dass es mit der Vernunftreligion nicMs ist." Kiel, 1819. 



594 



APPENDIX. 



Harnack, Adolf. — Outlines of the History of Dogma. Transl. by 
E. K. Mitchell. N. Y., 1893. Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte. 
3 Biinde, 1894-97. Transl. by Neil Buchanan. 7 vols., Host., 
1894-1900. Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius. 
2 Telle. 1893-97. 

Hauskatii, a. — David F. Strauss und die Theologie seiner Zeit. 

2 Biinde, Miinch., 1876-78. 
Havet, E. — Kritik iib. "Das Leben Jesu" v. E. Renan. Mannheim, 

1863. 

Heinkich, J. B. — Christus: Kritik des Rationalismus, des Strauss- 
ischen Mythicismus u. d. Lebens Jesu v. Renan. Mainz, 1864. 

Held, C. F. W. — Jesus der Christ, mit Riicksicht auf d. Rational- 
ismus u. Skepticismus d. Gegenwart. Ziirich, 1865. 

Heniiofku, a. — Der Kampf d. Unglaubens m. Aberglauben u. Glauben. 
Heidelb.. 1861. 

Henke, E. L. Til — Rationalismus u. Traditionalismus im 19. Jah,r- 

hundert. Marburg, 1864. 
Heuing. — Die Akephaler unsrer Zeit. Leipz., 1825. 
Heuinga, J. E. — Het gebruiken Misbruik der Kritik. Holland, 1793. 
Hofstede I)E Gkoot, p. — Die Groninger Theologen. Gotha, 1863. De 

moderne Theology in Nederland. Groningen, 1890. 
Hommel, Fritz. — The Ancient Hebrew Tradition. (S. P. C. K.) Lond., 

1897. 

Huffell, L. — Friedensvorschliige zur Beendigung des Streits zwi- 
schen bibl. Christlichen Theologen und Rationalisten; Zeit- 
schrift fiir Predigerwissenschaften. Bd. 2, St. 1. 

Hundeshagex, K. B. — Der Deutsche Protestantismus. 3 Aufl., Frank- 
fort a. M.. 1850. 

Hurteu, H. — Ueber die Rechte der Vernunft und des Glaubens. Inns- 
bruck, 1863. 

Kahler, L. a. — Supranaturalismus und Rationalismus in ihrem 
gemeinschaft. Ursprunge, ihrer Zwietracht u. hohern Einheit. 
Leipz., 1818. 

Kahler, M. — Unser Streit um die Bibel. Leipz., 1895. Dogma- 

tische Zeitfragen. Leipz., 1898. 
Kaftan, Tiieodor. — Der Christliche Glaube im geistigen Leben der 

Gegenwart. Schleswig, 1898. 
Kahnis, K. F. a. — Der innere Gang des deutschen Protestantismus 

seit Mitte des vorigen Jahrhunderts. Leipz., 1854. 
Kalthoff, a. — Schleiermachers Vermiichtniss an unsere Zeit. Berlin, 

1896. 

Kampe, F. — Geschichte der religiosen Bewegung d. neuern Zeit. 

2 Bande, Leipz., 1852-53. 
Kattexbusch, Ferd. — Von Schleiermacher zu Ritschl. Orientierung 

iiber den gegenwartigen Stand der Dogmatik. Giessen, 1893. 
Keim, I. — Der Geschichtliche Christus. Ziirich, 1864. 
Keim, T. — History of Jesus of Nazara. Considered in its Con- 
nection with the National Life of Israel, and Related in Detail. 

Transl. by Ransom and Geldart. 6 vols., Lond., 1883. 
Kessler, L. — Ueber Offenbarung und Wunder. Gottingen, 1899. 
Kleuker, J. F. — Ueber das Ja und Nein der Bibl. Christl. u. der 

reinen Vernunfttheologie. Hamburg, 1819. Ueber den alten und 

neuen Protestantismus. Bremen, 1823. 
Kohler, a. — Die niederlandisch-reform. Kirche. Erlangen, 1856. 
Kolling, Heinrich. — Der erste Brief Pauli an Timotheus. Wittenb., 

1882-87. 

An examination of the First Epistle to Timothy with a view to reply to Schlel- 
ermacher's attack on its authenticity. 



APPENDIX. 



595 



ICoNiG, F. E.— The Religious History of Israel. A Discussion of the 
Chief Problems in Old Testament History as Opposed to the De- 
velopment Theories. Transl. by A. J. Campbell. Edinb., 1885. 

KuENEN, A. — The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined. 
Transl. from the Dutch by Rt. Rev. J. W. Colenso. Lond., 1865. 
The Religion of Israel to the Fall of the Jewish State. Transl. 
by Alfred Heath May. 3 vols., Lond., 1874. The Prophets and 
Prophecy in Israel. An Historical and Critical Enquiry. Transl. 
by A. Milroy. With an Introduction by J. Muir. Lond,, 1877. 
Historisch-kritische Einleitung in die Bucher des alten Testa- 
ments. Leipz., 1885. An Historico-Critical Inquiry into the 
Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch (Pentateuch and Book 
of Joshua.) Transl. by P. H. Wicksteed. Lond., 1886. 

1,ANG, H.— Dogmatik. Berlin, 1858. Ein Gang durch die Christ- 
liche Welt. Berlin, 1859. Religiose Charactere. Winterthur, 1862. 

Lechler, Gustav. — Das apostolische und das nachapostolische 
Zeitalter. Berlin, 1885. 

Ley, J. — Jesaia, Kap. 40-66, nach den Ergebrissen der babylonischen 
Keilinschriften, nebst Abhandlung iiber Bedeutung des "Knecht 
Gottes." Marburg, 1893. 

Lichtenberger, F. — History of German Theology in the Nineteenth 
Century. Transl. and ed. by W. Hastie. Edinb. and N. Y., 1889. 

Lindenmeyer, J. — Geschichte Jesu nach der heiligen Schrift. 2 Telle, 
Giitersloh, 1875-76. 

Lisco, H. — Die Lehre von Christus, dem Sohn des Menschen. Berlin, 
1899. 

LoRGioN, E. J. — The Pastor of Vliethinzen; or. Conversations about 
the Groninger School. Cape Town, 1865. 

A novel, translated from the Dutch, for the use of Colonists in Southern Africa. 

LoTZ, WiLHELM. — Geschlchtc und Offenbarung in Alten Testament. 
Leipz., 1893. 

LoTZE, Hermann. — Microcosmus. An Essay concerning Man and his 
Relation to the World. Transl. by Elizabeth Hamilton and 
E. E. C. Jones. 2 vols., N. Y., 1885. 

LuTHARDT, C. E. — Die modernen Dartstellungen des Lebens Jesu. 
Eine Besprechung der Schriften von Strauss, Renan, etc. Leipz., 
1864. St. John, the Author of the Fourth Gospel. Revised, 
Transl., and the Literature much enlarged, by Casper Rene 
Gregory. Leipz. and Edinb., new ed., 1885. 

Meinhold, J. — Jesus und das alte Testament. Leipz., 1896. Jesaia 
und seine Zeit. Leipz., 1898. 

Menzi, Theodor. — Der Materialismus vor dem Richterstuhl der 
Wissenschaft. Den Gebildeten aller Stande dargeboten. Ziirich, 
1898. 

Meyer, J. — Das Leben Jesu v. Dav. Frdr. Strauss. Leipz., 1865. 
Mezger, p. — Christlicher Gottesglaube und christlicher Offenbarungs- 

glaube. Basel, 1897. 
MicHELis, F. — Renan's Roman vom Leben Jesu. Miinster, 1864. 
Moller, W. — Historische und kritische Bedenken gegen die Graf- 

Wellhausen'sche Hypothese. Giitersloh, 1899. 
Neuester Nachtrag zu Renan's Leben Jesu. Berlin, 1864. 
Nicolas, A. — Die Gottheit Jesu. Regensb., 1864. 
NrrzscH, C. L.— Ueber das Heil der Theologie durch Unterscheidung 

der Offenbarung und Religion als Mittel und Zweck. Wittenb., 

1830. 

NoACK, L. — Die Freidenker in der Religion. Berne, 1853. 

Oehler, Gustav Friedrich.— Theology of the Old Testament. Trajisl. 



596 



APPENDIX. 



by Ellen D. Smith and Sophia Taylor. 2 vols., Edinb. and N. Y.^ 

1874. Rev. with additions by G. E. Day. 1 vol., N. Y., 1883. 
OosTERZEE, J. J. VAX. — Geschichte oder Roman? Das Leben Jesu y. 

E. Renan beleuchtet. Hamburg, 1864. 
Opzoomer, C. W. — De waarheid en hare kenbronnen. Amsterdam, 

1862. 

Orelli, C. von. — The Old Testament Prophecy of the Consumma- 
tion of God's Kingdom, Traced in its Historical Development. 
Transl. by J. S. Banks. Edinb., 1885. 

Paulus, H. E. G. — Zeitgemiisse Beleuchtung des Streites zwischen 
dem Eingebungsglauben und der Urchristlichen Denkglaubigkeit. 
Wiesbaden, 1830. 

Petre.nz. K. a. — Wie hast du Renan's Leben Jesu aufgenommen? 
Neu-Ruppin, 1864. 

Pfleideuek, Otto. — The Influence of the Apostle Paul on Christian- 
ity. N. Y., 1885. Urchristentum, seine Schriften und Lehren. 
Berlin, 1887. Entwickelung der protestantischen Theologie in 
Deutschland seit Kant, und in Grossbritanien seit 1825. Frei^ 
burg, 1891. Transl. by J. F. Smith. Lond. and N. Y., 2d ed., 
1893. Evolution and Theology (first of ten essays). Lond. and 
N. Y., 1900. 

PoLSToitFF, Fu. — Der Subjektivismus in der modernen Theologie und 

sein Unrecht. Giitersloh, 1893. 
Raumer, F. — Schwarz. Strauss, Renan. Leipz., 1864. 
Reisciile, Max. — Christenthum und Entwickelungsgedanke. Leipz., 

1898. 

Reuscii, F. H. — Nature and the Bible. Lectures on the Mosaic His- 
tory of Creation in Relation to Modern Science. Transl. by Kath- 
leen Lyttelton. Edinb., 1886. 

Reuss, Edwaki) William Ehjkxe. — History of the Canon of the Holy 
Scriptures in the Christian Church. Transl. by D. Hunter. 
Edinb. and N. Y., 1883. History of the Sacred Scriptures of the 
New Testament. Transl. from the 5th German ed. by Edward 
C. Houghton. 2 vols., Edinb. and Best., 1884. 

Riggexbacii, C. J. — Der Heutige Rationalismus besonders in der Deut- 
schen Schweiz. Basel, 1862. 

RiT.sciiL and Ritschlianism. 

RiTSCHL, A. — Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtertigung und der 
Versohnung. 3 Aufl., Bonn, 1888. Transl. by J. S. Black. 
Edinb., 1872. Fides implicita. Eine Untersuchung liber K(3hl- 
erglauben, Wissen und Glauben, Glauben und Kirche. Bonn, 
1890. Theologie und Methaphysik. 2 Aufl., 1887. Unterricht 
in der christlichen Religion. 4 Aufl., Bonn, 1890. Die christ- 
liche Vollkommenheit. 2 Aufl., Gottingen, 1889. 

Bestmaxn, H. J. — Die theologische Wissenschaft und die Ritschl'- 
sche Schule. Nordlingen, 1881. 

Claravallexsis, Johs. — Die falschmiinzerische Theologie Albr. 
Ritschls und die Christliche Wahrheit. Giitersloh, 1891. 

EssLiXGER, R. — Zur Erkenntnisstheorie Ritschls. Zurich, 1891. 

FLrcEL, O. — Ritschls philosophische und theologische Ansichten. 
2 Aufl., Langensalza, 1892. 

Fraxk, H. R. — Ueber die kirchliche Bedeutung der Theologie 
Ritschls. Erlangen, 1888. 

Haug, L. — Darstellung und Beurteilung der Ritschl'schen Theol- 
ogie. 3 Aufl., Ludwigsburg, 1895. 

Lipsius, R. A. — Die Ritschl'sche Theologie. Leipzig, 1888. 



APPENDIX. 



597 



MiELKE, G — Das System Ritschls dargestellt, nicht kritisirt. Bonn, 
1894. 

NiPPOLD, Fr— Die theologische Einzelschule in Verhilltniss zur 
evangelischen Kirche, mit besonderer Riicksicht auf die jung- 
ritschl'sche Schule, etc. Braunschweig, 1893. 

Orr, James. — The Ritschlian Theology and the Evangelical Faith. 
N. Y., 1897. 

Pfleiderer, O. — Die Ritschl'sche Theologie kritisch beleuchtet. 
Braunschweig, 1891. 

RiTSCHL, O. — Albrecht Ritschls Leben. Freib. i. Br., 1891. 

ScHULZE, G. C. A. — Pietismus, Ritschl'sche Theologie und Luther- 
turn. Hannover, 1890. 

Stahlin, L. — Kant, Lotze und A, Ritschl. Leipz., 1888. 

Swing, Albert Temple. — The Theology of Albrecht Ritschl. To- 
gether with Instruction in the Christian Religion by Albrecht 
Ritschl. Transl. by permission from the 4th German ed. by 
Alice Mead Swing. N. Y., 1901. 
RiTTER, H. — Ernst Renan lib. die Naturwissenschaften u. die Ge- 

schichte. Gotha, 1865. 
RoHR, J. F. — Briefe liber den Rationalismus. Aachen, 1813. Grund- 

und Glaubenssatze der Evang.-protest. Kirche. Neust., 1832-34. 
RoHRBAcii, P. — Die Berichte iiber die Auferstehung Jesu Christi. 
Berlin, 1898. 

RoMANG, J. P. — Ueber Unglauben, Pietismus u. Wissenschaft. Zurich, 
1859. 

RosENKRANZ, K. — Kritik d. Principien d. Strauss'schen Glaubens- 
lehre. Leipz., 1844. 

RoYAARDS. H. J.— Geschiedenis van het Christendom. ]Srederland,1853. 

RticKERT, L. J. — Der Rationalismus. Leipz., 1859. 

RuMPF, J. W. — Kirchenglaube und Erfahrung. Strasb., 1854. Bibel 
und Christus. Strasb., 1858. 

RuppRECHT, E. — Die Ratsel des Fiinfbuches Mose und seine falsche 
Losung. Giitersloh, 1894. Des Riitsels Losung. I. Die Losung 
fiir den Christenglauben. 1895. II. Erweis der Echtheit. Wis- 
senschaftliches Handbuch der Einleitung ins Alte Testament. 
1898. 

Rtjthenus, K. — Der formale Supernaturalismus oder d. einzig^ 
mogliche Weg zur einer Ausgleichung der streitenden theolog. 
Partheien. Leipz., 1834. 

Sartorius, C— Die Religion ausserhalb der Grenzen der blossen Ver- 
nunft. Marburg, 1822. Ueber die Unwissenschaftlichkeit und 
innere Verwandschaft des Rationalismus und Romanismus. 
Auch u. d. Tit: Beitrage zur Evang. Rechtglaubigkeit. 1 Hft. 
Heidelb., 1825. 

Schader, E.— Die Bedeutung des lebendigen Christus fur die Recht- 

fertigung nach Paulus. Giitersloh, 1893. 
Schexkel. D.— Die Religiosen Zeitkampfe. Hamburg, 1847. Das 

Characterbild Jesu. Wiesbaden, 1864. Transl. by W. H. Furness. 

2 vols., Lond. and Bost., 1869. Die Protestantische Freiheit in 

Ihrem gegenwartigen Kampfe in der Kirchlichen Reaktion. 

Wiesbaden. 1865. ^. 
ScHLOSSER, F. C— Geschichte d. 18 und 19 Jahrhunderts. (First two 

vols.) Heidelb., 1843. , , -r> . 

ScHMiD, RrDOLPH.— The theories of Darwin and their Relation to 

Philosophy, Religion, and Morality. Transl. by G. A. Zimmer- 

mann, with an Introduction by the Duke of Argyll. Chicago, 

1883 

Schmidt, Hermann.— Zur Christologie. Berlin, 1892. 



598 



APPENDIX. 



Schmidt, P. V. — Der Galaterbrief in Feuer der neuesten Kritik. 
Leipz., 1892. 

SciioLTEN, J. H. — Oratio de pugna theologiam inter atque philo- 

sophiam recto utriusque studio tollenda. Leipz., 1847. Dog- 

matices Christiauiv Initia. Editio II. Leyden, 1858. 
SciioTT. H. A. — Briefe iiber Religion und Christlichen Offenbarungs- 

glauben. Jena, 1S2G. 
SciiKoTKK, W. — Christianismus. Humanismus und Rationalismus in 

ihrer Identitiit. Leipz., 1830. 
Sc iii UKKT, F. \V. — Die Freien Gemeinde unserer Zeit. Berlin, 1850. 
ScHUDKKOFK, J. — Briefc iiber den Rationalismus und Supernaturalis- 

mus, in Journal fiir Veredlung des Prediger- und Schullehrer- 

standes. Jahrg. 1811. Bd. 2, St. 3. 
Sc iu i.THKss, J,, vsi) OuKLLi. J. K. — Rationalismus und Supernaturalis- 

mus, Kanon, Tradition und Scription. Ziirich. 1822. 
Sciii LTZb:, L. — Die Wunder Jesu Christi mit Beziehung a. d. Leben 

Jesu V. Renan. Kiinigsb., 1SG4. 
Schwartz, C. — Zur Geschichte d. neuesten Theologie. 3 sehr verm. 

Auf. Leipz., 1SG4. 
Skpp, Dk. — Thaten u. Lehren Jesu; auf die jungsten Werke v. Renan 

und Strauss. Sc-hafThausen. 18G4. 
Spitta, Friedkuii. — Zur Geschichte und Literatur des Urchristen- 

tums. 2 Biinde, Gottingen. 181)3-96. 
Staudlin, C. F. — Geschichte des Rationalismus und Supranaturalis- 

mus. G<")ttingen. 1826. 
Steffkxs. H. — Von der falschen Theologie und dem Wahren Glauben. 

Breslau, 1831. 

Steickr. W. — Kritik des Rationalismus in Wegscheider's Dogmatik. 
Berlin. 1830. 

Steude. E. G. — Die Auferstehung Jesu Christi. Leipzig, 1888. 

Stoscii, G. — Alt-testamentliche Studien. Giitersloh, 1898. 

Stratss. D. F. — Das Leben Jesu. Berlin, 1835. Das Leben Jesu f. 

das Deutsche Volk bearb. Leipz., 1864. Authorized transl. 3 

vols., Lond.. 1879. The Old Faith and the New. A Confession. 

Authorized transl. by Mathilda Blind. Lond. and N. Y., new ed., 

1874. 

Tafel. F. I. — Das Leben Jesu — gegen die Angriffe d. Dr. Strauss u. d. 
Unglaubens iiberhaupt. Basel, 1863. 

Theit.er. C. G. W. — Christus und die Vernunft. Leipz., 1830. Aphor- 
ismen zur Verstiindigung iiber den sogenannten alten und 
neuen Glauben. Leipz., 1839. 

Tholuck, a. — Vermischte Schriften II., "Geschichte der Umwalzung 
der Theologie seit 1750." Hamburg, 1839. Die Lehre v. der 
Siinde und vom Verstthnen. 7 Auf., Hamburg, 1851. Vorge- 
schichte des Rationalismus. Zwei Theile. Berlin, 1859-62. 
Geschichte d. Rationalismus. Erste Abth. Berlin, 1865. 

Tittmaxx, J. A. H. — Ueber Supranaturalismus, Rationalismus, u. 
Atheismus. Leipz., 1816. 

Uhlhorx, G. — Kiimpfe und Siege des Christentums in der german- 
ischen Welt. Stuttgart, 1897. 

Ullmaxx, K. — Theologisches Bedenken auf Veranlassung des An- 
griffs der evangel. Kirchenzeit, auf den Hallischen Rational- 
ismus. Halle. 1830. 

Together with many other articles of similar character in "Studien und Kritiken," 

Ulrici, Hermann. — Strauss as a Philosophical Thinker. A Review of 
his Book, "The Old Faith and the New Faith," and a Confuta- 
tion of its Materialistic Views. Transl. by C. P. Krauth. Phila., 
1874. 



APPENDIX. 



599 



Valeton, J. J. p.— Vergangliches und Ewiges im Alten Testament. 

Berlin, 1895. Christus und das Alte Testament. Berlin, 1896. 
Veit, K. — Die synoptischen Parallelen und ein alter Versuch ihrer 

Entratselung mit neuer Begriindung. Giitersloh, 1897. 
Vebantwortung (zur) des Christlichen Glauben. 10 Vortrage von 

Riggenbach, Auberlen, Gess, und andere. Basel, 1862. 
VoiGHTLANDEH, J. A. — Der Rationalismus nach seinen philosophischen 

Hauptformen und in seiner historischen Gestalt. Leipz., 1830. 
Walker, Theodou. — Jesus und das Alte Testament in ihrer gegensei- 

tigen Bezeugung. Giitersloh, 1899. 
Wegscheider, J. A. L. — Institutiones Theologiae Christianse Dog- 

maticEe. Halle, 1815. Sth ed., 1844. 
Weidemaxn, K. a. — Die Neuesten Darstellungen d. Lebens Jesu von 

Kenan, Schenkel, Strauss. Gotha, 1864, 
Weiss, Bernharu. — The Life of Christ. Transl. by J. Walter and M. 

G. Hope. 3 vols., Edinb. and N. Y., 1883-84. Lehrbuch der bib- 

lischen Theologie des Neuen Testaments. Berlin, 1895. Lehrbuch 

der Einleitung in das Neue Testament. 2 Bande, Berlin, 1888. 
Weizsacker, Carl von. — The Apostolic Age of the Christian Church. 

Transl. by J. Millar. Lond. and N. Y., 1894. 
Wellhausex, J. — Israelitische und jiidische Geschichte. Berlin, 1894. 

Prolegomena to the History of Israel. With a Reprint of the 

article Israel from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Transl. by J. 

Sutherland Black and A. Menzies. With Preface by W. R. Smith. 

Edinb. and N. Y., 1888. 
Wiesinger, a. — Aphorismen gegen Renan's Leben Jesu. Wien, 1864. 
WiGGERS, J. — Kirchlicher oder reinbiblischer Supranaturalismus? 

Leipz., 1842. 

WiSLiCExus, G. A. — Die Bibel, fiir denkende Leser betrachtet. 
Leipz., 1864. 

WoLLWARTH, F. — Gedaukeu ub. das characterbild Christi, von Schen- 
kel. Stuttgart, 1865. 

Zahn, a. — Ernste Blicke in den Wahr der modernen Kritik des 
Alten Testaments. Giitersloh, 1894. 

Zahn, Theodor. — Einleitung in das Neue Testament. 2 Bande, 
Leipz., 1897-98. Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestament- 
lichen Kanons und der altchristlichen Literatur. 5 Bande, 
1881-93. Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons. 2 Bande, 
1888-92. 

Zeitfragex Religiose, Unparteiisch beurtheilt v. e. Laien. Tiib., 1864. 
ZocKLER, O. — Die Evangelien kritik u. das Lebensbild Christi nach 

d. Schrift. Darmstadt, 1864. 
ZoLLicH, C. F.— Brief e iiber den Supranaturalismus; eine Gegen- 

schrift zu den Briefen iiber den Rationalismus. Sondershausen, 

182L 

RATIONALISTIC PERIODICALS. 

Allgemeixe kirchliche Zeitschrift.— Published by D. Schenkel, 

Elberfeld, 1860-72. 
Ann ALEN.— Published by Schulthess, 1826-30. 
Deutschkatholisches- Sonxtagsblatt. — Wiesb., 1852-73. 
Fbeies (fur) religioses Leben. — Breslau, 1848. 

The Journal of the " Friends of Light." 
Kirche der Gegenwaet.— Biedermann und Fries. Ziirich, 1845-50. 
KiRCHEX-uxD-ScHrLBLATT. — Weimar, 1852-1901. , ^ -r 

Predigerbibliothek.— Published by Rohr, 1820-48. Continued by L. 

Lange. to 1851. -io^oaA 
Protest antischf. Blatter, Fiir das evang. Oesterreich.—Wien, 1863-64. 



600 



APPENDIX. 



Pbotestantische Kirchenzeitung. — H. Eltester und Carl Schwartz. 
Berlin, 1854-96. Continued as Protestantische Monatshefte. 
1897-1901. 

This quarterly is the leatUnj? organ of the German Rationalists. 
SoNNTAGSULATT. — UhHch. Gotha, 1850. Quarterly. 
SoPHROMZEN. — Published by Paulus, 1819-30. 

TiiEoLOGiscuE Jahriucher. — F. Chr. Baur und E. Zeller. Tiib., 

1842-56. Not continued. 
Zeitsciiriit fur wissenschaft. Theologie. — A Hilgenfeld. Halle, 

1858-1901. 

Zeitsti.m.mkx aus d. reformirten Kirciie der Schweiz. — H. Lang. 
Winterthur, 1859-60. 

II.— FRANCE AND FRENCH SWITZERLAND. 

Arnaud, A. — Les Orthodoxes et le Parti liberal protestant. Paris,. 
1864. 

Astie, J. F. — Les deux Tht'ologies nouvelles dans le sein du Proteat- 

antisme Fran(;ais. Paris, 1862. 
Bertiioi i), a. — Apologie du christianisme. Lausanne and Paris, 1898. 
Biermann. C. — Foi et Raison. Paris, 1860. 

Bois.soNAis, L. — Doctrine de la nouvelle cede d'apres MM. Rcville, 

A. Coquerel, fils. et Colani. Paris, 1864. 
BoNAR. HoRATirs. — The White Fields of France; or. The Story of Mr. 

M'All's Mission to the Working Men of Paris and Lyons. 

Lond.. 1873. and N. Y., 1879. 
Bui.sso.N.F. — L'orthodoxie et I'Evangile dans I'Eglise rcformoe. Paris, 

1864. 

Cassax-Floyrac, L'Ahijk. — Le Rationalisme devant la Raison. Paris, 
1858. 

Chapuis, Paul. — Du Surnaturel — Etudes de Philosophic et d'Histoire 

roligieuses. Lausanne, 1898. 
Colani, T. — Ma Position dans I'feglise de la Confession d'Augsbourg, 

Paris, 1860. Jesus Christ et les Croyances messianiques de son 

Temps. Paris, 1864. 
Coquerel, A. — Christologie. Paris, 1859. 

Coquerel, E. — M. Guizot et I'Orthodoxie protestante. Paris, 1864. 

Libcreaux et orthodoxes. Paris, 1864, 
DiDOX. H. — Science without God. Transl. by Rosa Corder. Lond., 

1882. 

DuxAiME, L'Abbe J. — De la Raison dans ses Rapports avec la Foi. 
Paris, 1858. 

Fa YET, A. — Lettres a un rationaliste sur la philosophic et la religion. 
Paris, 1864. 

Fraxchi, a. — Le Rationalisme. Bruxelles, 1858. 
Frommel. G. — Le danger moral de I'evolutionnisme religieux. Lau- 
sanne, 1898. 

Frossard, C. L. — L'orthodoxie de I'Eglise reformee de France. Paris, 
1864. 

GuizoT, F. — Meditations sur I'Essence de la Religion Chretienne. 
Paris, 1864. 

Jaxet, Paul. — Final Causes. Transl. by W. Affleck. With Preface 
by R. Flint. Edinb. and N. Y., 1883. 

Laeroque, p. — Renovation religieuse. Paris, 1859. Examen Crit- 
ique des doctrines de la religion Chretienne. Paris, 1859. 

Lups, L'Abbe J. — Le Traditionalisme et le Rationalisme. Liege, 
1859. 

Nicolas, M. — l^tudes Critiques sur la Bible. Paris, 1861. 



APPEJ^DIX. 



601 



PiEPENBRiNG, Ch.— Theology of the Old Testament. Transl. from the 

French by H. G. Mitchell. N. Y., 1893. 
Pressense, E. de.— Le Pays de I'Evangile; Notes d'un voyage en 

Orient. Paris, 1865. 
Remusat, C. de. — Philosophie Religieuse. Paris, 1864. 
Renan, E. — Etudes d'histoire Religieuse. 3d Edition. Paris, 1858. 

Vie de Jesus. Paris, 1863. Transl. by C. E. Wilbour. N. Y. and 

Lond., new ed., 1871. Religious History and Criticism. Transl. 

by O. B. Frothingham. N. Y., 1864. The Apostles. N. Y. and 

Lond., 1869. Saint Paul. Transl. by Ingersoll Lockwood. N. Y. 

and Lond., 1871. The History of the Origins of Christianity. 

7 vols., Lond., 1888. 



Literature Arising out of the Publication of Renan's "Life of 

Jesus." 

AuG^;, L. — Neuf pages decisives sur la Vie de Jesus de M. E. Renan. 
Paris, 1863. 

Baudon, p. L. — M. Ernest Renan, le prophete et le vrai fils de Dieu. 
Paris, 1863. 

Block, S. — M. Renan et le Judaisme. Paris, 1863. 

BoNALD, M. de. — Mandement portant condamnation du livre intitule: 

la Vie de Jesus, par E. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
Bonnetain, J. — Le Christ-Dieu devant les Siecles. M. Renan et 

son roman du jour. Paris, 1863. 
Bourquenoud, a. — Les Distractions de M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
BoYLEsvE, M. de. — M. Renan, defenseur de la foi d'apres un procede 

nouveau. Paris, 1863. 
Carle, H. — Crises des croyances. M. Renan, et I'esprit de systeme. 

Paris, 1863. 

Castaing, a. — Jesus, M. E. Renan et la science. Paris, 1863. 
Chauvelot, B. — M. Renan, Paris, 1863. 

Cheret, L'ABBi:. — Lettres d'un cure de campagne a M. Renan. Paris, 
1863. 

Clabaut, L'ABB^:. — E. Renan et I'Evangile. Paris, 1863. 
Cochin, A. — Quelques mots sur le Vie de Jesus de M. E. Renan. 
Paris, 1863. 

CoLANi, T.— Examen de la Vie de J§sus de M. Renan. Strasbourg, 
1864. 

Constant, B. — Les contradictions de M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
CoRRESPONDANCE ApocRYPHE cutre M. E. Reuau et sa soeur Ursule. 
Paris, 1863. 

Delaporte, a. — La Critique et la Tactique, a propos de M. Renan. 
Paris, 1863. , 

Des Granges, F.— Une Echappe sur la Vie de Jesus d'Ernest Re- 
nan. Paris, 1863. , 

Deshaires, G.— La Vie de Jesus, les Evangiles, et M. Renan. Paris, 
1863. 

Evangile (le cinqui^me) de M. Renan,— par M. H. D. Pans, 1863. 

Felix, R. P.— M. Renan et sa Vie de J^sus. Quelques mots sur le 
livre de la Vic de Jesus. Paris, 1863. 

Foisset, J. T.— Ernest Renan: Vie de Jesus. Paris, 1863. 

Fregier, J. C— Jesus devant le droit, ou Critique judiciare de la 
Vie de Jesus de M. E. Renan. Paris, 1863. 

Freppel, L'Abbe.— Examen Critique de la Vie de Jesus de M. Re- 
nan. Paris. 1863. , . 

Ginoulhiac, J. M. A.— Lettre a I'un de ses vicaires generaux sur la 
Vie de Jesus par M. E. Renan. Paris, 1863. 



602 



APPENDIX. 



GuETTf:E, L'Abbk. — Refutation de la prf'tendue Vie de JC'sus de M. 

Renan. Paris, 1863. 
Havet, E. — Jt'siis dans I'histoire. Examen de la Vie de Jesus par 

Renan. Paris. 1863. 
Hello, E. — M. Renan et la Vie de Jesus. Paris, 1863. 
Hekvk. E. a. — Divinite de Jesus. Reponse a M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
JouKDAiN, A. — Refutation rationnelle de la Vie de JOsus. Paris, 

1863. 

Lacouuaiue, R. — Aux Lecteurs de M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 

LAUKogi E, P. — Opinion des Dristes rationalistes sur la Vie de Jesus, 
selon M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 

Lassekke. H. — L'Evangile selon Renan. Paris, 1863. 

Latofr. — Une rt'ponse ;1 M. Volusien Pages. Refutation d'une Re- 
futation, de M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 

Lai KKM iE, P. S. — Le Livre de M. E. Renan, sur la Vie de Jesus. 
Paris, 1863. 

Le Peltier, E. — Vie de E. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
Leroy. E. — Reponse d'un poi'te a M. E. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
Levy, Le Rabui.n. — La Synagogue et M. Renan. Paris. 1863. 
LoYso.N, J. T. — Une pretendue Vie de Jesus, ou M. E. Renan. Paris, 
1863. 

Macrakls, a. — Le Vrai Jesus Christ oppose au Jesus faux imagin6 
par M. E. Renan, et son fecole sceptique. Paris, 1863. 

^LvciE, C. — Jesus Christ, ou la Verite vraie dans la question du 
moment. Paris. 1863. 

Markot. M. — La Vie de M. Renan et le Maudit. Paris, 1863. 

Mathert, H. — Nicodeme. etude sur M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 

^Lvi RETTE. O. — Jesus et la vraie Philosophie. Paris, 1863. 

Meignax, G. — M. Renan refute par les Rationalistes Allemandes. 
Paris. 1864. 

Mic'iiox, J. H. — Deux Leeons A M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 

MiLsANi). Pii. — Bibliographie des Publications relatives au livre de 

M. Renan. Vie de Jesus. Paris, 1864. 
MiRViLLE, J. E. — Le Vrai Secret de M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
MoxoT, E. — k propos du livre de M. Renan, la Vie de Jesus. Paris, 

1863. 

Monsieur Renan en face du miracle; par un Croyant. Paris, 1863. 
Olgo, S. — Reflexions d'un orthodoxe de I'feglise grecque sur la Vie 

de Jesus, de M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
Orsini, L'Abbk. — Refutation du livre de M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
Orth, N. J. — La Vie de Jesus, selon M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
Pag^s, V. — M. Renan et son siecle. Paris, 1863. 
Parisis, p. L. — Jesus Christ est Dieu: demonstration. Paris, 1863. 
Passaglia, p. C. — Etude sur la Vie de Jesus de E. Renan. Paris, 

1863. 

Pavy, L. G. — Observations sur le roman intitule Vie de Jesus par E. 
Renan. Paris, 1863. Conference centre le livre de M. Renan. 
Paris, 1863. 

Pe De Arros. J. — Coup d'ceil sur la Vie de Jesus de M. Renan. 
Paris, 1863. 

Philips, J. P. — Dieu, les miracles, et la science. Paris, 1863. 
Pinard, L'Abbe. — Notes a I'usage des lecteurs du Jesus de M. Renan. 
Paris, 1863. 

PiOGER, L. M. — Divinite de J6sus prouvee par les faits. Reponse k 
M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 

Plantier, C. H. a.— Un panegyriste de M. Renan. Paris, 1863. In- 
struction pastorale centre la Vie de Jesus par Renan. Paris, 1863. 



APPENDIX. 



603 



PoTREL, E .— Vie de N. S. Jesus Christ, reponse au livre de M. Renan. 
Paris, 1863. 

PoujouLAT, J. J. F. — Examen de la Vie de Jesus de M. Renan. Paris 
1863. 

PRESSENsfi, E. DE.— L'Ecole critique et Jesus Christ, a propos de la 

Vie de Jesus de M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
Reville, a. — La Vie de Jesus de M. Renan devant les orthodoxies 

et devant la critique. Paris, 1863. 
RoLTssEL, N,— Le Jesus de M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
Saas, a.— Epitre a M. E. Renan centre la "Vie de Jesus." Paris, 

1863. 

Saint-Semmera. — Ecce homo, critique impartiale de la Vie de Jesus 

de M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
Troghoff-Kerbiquet.— La Defense de I'Evangile. Epitre en vers 

a M. Renan. Paris, 1863. 
Vie (la) et la Mort de Jesus, selon Renan. Havet, et Remusat. 

Paris, 1864. 

Reville, A. — De la Redemption. Paris, 1859. Essais de critique re- 
ligieuse. Paris, 1860. A History of the Doctrine of the Deity 
of Jesus Christ. From the French. Lond., 1870. Jesus de 
Nazareth. Etudes critiques au les antecedents de Fhistorie 
evangelique et la vie de Jesus. 2 tomes, Paris, 1897. 

Saintes, A^iiAXD. — Histoire Critique du Rationalisme en Allemagne. 
Paris, 1841. 

ScHERER, E. — Melanges des critiques religieuses. Paris, 1860. 
Secretax, C. — La Raison et le Bonheur. Paris, 1863. 



RATIONALISTIC PERIODICALS. 

Disciple (le) de Jesus Christ (Monthly). Redacteur: M. E. Haag. 

Paris, 1840-50. Deuxieme serie, 1851-73. 
Le Lien; Journal des Eglises re^rmees de France (Weekly). Redac- 

teurs: A. Coquerel, fils; et Etienne Coquerel. Paris, 1862. 
Nou\t:lle Revue de Theologie (Quarterly). Redacteur: T. Colani. 

Strasburg, 1858-63. 
Revue Germanique (Monthly). Paris, 1858-65. Continued as Revue 

Moderne, 1865-69. 

IIL— GREAT BRITAIN— UNITED STATES. 

The following series are valuable though voluminous: Bampton 
Lectures at Oxford, 1780-1901; Boyle Lecture Sermons at Chapel 
Royal. Whitehall, 1691-1901; Bridgewater Treatises, 11 vols., 1832- 
1840; Hibbert Lectures at Edinburgh, 1878-1901; Hulsean Lectures 
at Cambridge, 1820-1901. 

Abbot, Ezra.— The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel: External Evi- 
dences. Best., 1880. The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel and 
other Critical Essays; selected from the unpublished Papers of 
the late Ezra Abbot. Bost, 1889. 

Allen, Alexander V. G.— The Continuity of Christian Thought: a 
Study of Modem Theology in the Light of its History. Bost., 
1884. 

Argyll. Duke of (G. D. Campbell). — The Reign of Law. Lond., 
1866, and N. Y., 1885. 

Arnold, Matthew.— St. Paul and Protestantism; with an Introduc- 
tion on Puritanism and the Church of England. Lond. and 
Bost., 3d ed.^ 1875. God and the Bible. A Review of Objections 



604 



APPENDIX. 



to Literature and Dogma. Lond. and Bost., 1876. Literature 
and Dogma. An Essay toward a Better Apprehension of the 
Bible. Lond. and Bost., 5th ed., 1877. 

Baden-Powell, B. H. — Creation and its Records: a Brief Statement 
of Christian Belief, with Reference to Modern Facts and Ancient 
Scripture. Lond., 1886. 

Balfouh, a. J. — A Defense of Philosophical Doubt. Being an Essay- 
on the Foundations of Belief. Lond., 1879. 

Ball, C. J.— Light from the East. Lond., 1899. 

Banxermann. J. — Inspiration, the Infallible Truth and Divine 
Authority of the Holy Scriptures. Edinb., 1865. 

Barker, T. — Strictures on Maurice's Doctrine of Sacrifice. Lond., 
1858. 

Barrows, John Henry. — Christianity the World-Religion. Chicago, 
1897. 

Bartlett, Samuel Colcord. — The Veracity of the Hexateuch: a 

Defense of the Historic Character of the First Six Books of the 

Bible. N. Y., 1897. 
Basco.m, John. — Evolution and Religion; or, Faith as a Part of a 

Complete Cosmic System. N. Y., 1897. 
Bayne, p. — Testimony of Christ to Christianity. Lond., 1862. 
Beale. Lionel S. — Life Theories: their Influence upon Religious 

Thought. Lond., 1871. 
Beard, T. R. — Voices of the Church in Reply to Dr. Strauss. Lend., 

1845. Christ the Interpreter of Scripture. Lond., 1865. 
Beecher, Henry Ward. — Evolution and Religion. N. Y., 1885. 
Bellows, H. W. — Restatements of Christian Doctrine. N. Y., 1860. 
Berdoe, Edward. — Browning and the Christian Faith. N. Y., 1896. 
BiRKs, T. R. — Lectures on Modern Rationalism and Inspiration. 

Lond., 1853. The Bible and Modern Thought. With Appendix. 

Lond., 1863. 

BissELL, Edward Cone. — The Pentateuch: its Origin and Structure. 

An Examination of Recent Theories. N. Y., 1885. 
Blake, B. — Infidelity Inexcusable. Lond., 1855. 

BoHM. C. J. T. — Lights and Shadows in the Present Condition of the 
Church. Lond., 1860. 

Boston Lectures, 1870: Christianity and Skepticism. 1871: Chris- 
tianity and Skepticism: comprising a Treatment of Questions in 
Biblical Criticism. 1872: Christianity and Skepticism: em- 
bracing a Consideration of Important Facts of Christian Doc- 
trine and Experience, and of Leading Facts in the Life of Christ. 
Bost., 1870, 1871, 1872. 

BowNE, Borden P.— The Philosophy of Theism. N. Y., 1887. The 
Philosophy of Herbert Spencer: being an Examination of the 
First Principles of his System. N. Y., 1874. Studies in Theism* 
N. Y., 1879. 

Bradford, Amory H. — The Age of Faith. Bost. and N. Y., 1900. 

Briggs, Charles Augustus. — Messianic Prophecy. The Prediction 
of the Fulfillment of Redemption through the Messiah. A Crit* 
ical Study of the Messianic Passages of the Old Testament in 
the Order of their Development. N. Y., 1886. Inspiration and 
Inerrancy. Edinb., 1891. The Bible, the Church, and the 
Reason: three Great Fountains of Divine Authority. N. Y., 
1892. The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch. N. Y., 1893. 

Broderick and Freemaxtle. — Judgments of the Judicial Committee 
of the Privy Council. Lond., 1865. 

Bruce, Alexander B.— The Training of the Twelve; or, Passages out 



APPENDIX. 605 

of the Gospels. N. Y., 4th ed. revised, 1888. The Miraculous 

Element. N. Y., 1886. 
Caied, John. — The Fundamental Ideas of Christianity, with Memoir 

by Charles Caird. 2 vols., N. Y., 1900. 
Cairns, J.— Unbelief in the Eighteenth Century as Contrasted with 

its Earlier and Later History. Cunningham Lectures for 1880. 

Lond., Edinb., and N. Y., 1881. 
Campbell, John. — The Hittites: their Inscriptions and their History 

2 vols., N. Y., 1891. 
Candlish, R. S. — Examination of Maurice's "Theological Essays." 

Lond., 1854. Reason and Revelation. Lond., 1859. 
Cave, Alfred. — The Battle of the Standpoints. Lond., 1891. 
Chadwick, John W. — The Faith of Reason. Bost., 1879. Theodore 

Parker, Preacher and Reformer. Bost. and N. Y., 1900. 
Chambers, T. W., Ed. — Moses and his Recent Critics. N. Y., 1889. 
Chapman, Charles. — Pre-organic Evolution and the Biblical Idea 

of God. An Exposition and a Criticism. N. Y., 1891. 
Cheyne, T. K. — Jeremiah: his Life and Times. Lond. and N. Y., 

1889. The Hallowing of Criticism. Nine Sermons on Elijah. 

Lond., 1888. Aids to the Devout Study of Criticism. Part I, 

The David Narratives. Part II, The Book of Psalms. Lond., 

1892. Founders of Old Testament Criticism: Biographical, 

Descriptive, and Critical Studies. Lond. and N. Y., 1893. 
Christian Sects in the Nineteenth Century. Lond., 1850. 
Christianity and Agnosticism. A Controversy. Papers by Henry 

Wace, Thomas H. Huxley, the Bishop of Peterborough, and 

others. N. Y., 1889. 
Christie, T. W. — Rationalism the Last Scourge to the Church. 

Lond., 1861. 

Church, R. W. — The Oxford Movement. Twelve Years, 1843-1855. 
Lond. and N. Y., new ed., 1892. 

Close, F. — The Footsteps of Error traced through a Period of 
Twenty-Five Years. Lond., 1863. 

CoBBE, Frances Power. — Religious Demands of the Age. Bost., 1863. 
An Essay on Intuitive Morals. Lond., 1864. Broken Lights. 
Lond., 1864. (A survey of the condition of Church Parties in 
England.) Religious Duty. Lond., 1864. Dawning Lights. An 
Inquiry concerning the Secular Results of the New Reforma- 
tion. Lond., 1868. 

Cocker, B. F. — The Theistic Conception of the World. An Essay in 
Opposition to Certain Tendencies of Modern Thought. N. Y., 1875. 

Colenso, Bp. — Village Sermons. Lond., 1853. St. Paul's Epistle 
to the Romans. Newly Translated. Lond., 1861. The Pentateuch 
and Book of Joshua critically examined. Lond., 1862-64. 7 parts 
in 7 vols. People's ed., Lond., 1878. 

Works called forth by the above Commentary. 

Alpha. — Bishop Colenso and the Pentateuch. Vindication of the 
Historical Character of the Old Testament. Lond., 1863. 

Anti-Colenso. — By Johannes Laicus. Lond., 1863. 

Ashpitel. F. — Increase of the Israelites in Egypt shown to be 
Probable from the Statistics of Modern Population; with an 
Examination of Bishop Colenso's Calculations on the Subject. 
Lond., 1863. 

Barrister (A). — History against Colenso. Dubl., 1863. 
Bartholomew, J. — All Scripture Given by Inspiration of God. 
Lond., 1863. 
40 



606 



APPENDIX. 



Beke, C. T.— a Few Words with Bishop Colenso. Lond., 1862. 
Benisch, a. — Bishop Colenso's Objections to the Pentateuch and 

Book of Joshua Critically Examined. Lond., 1863. 
BiBER, G. E. — The Integrity of the Holy Scriptures and their 

Divine Inspiration and Authority Vindicated. Lond., 1863. 
Bible in the Workshop. By two Working Men. Lond., 1863. 
Bible (the) in the Gospels. By Alpha. Lond., 1863. 
BiDEN, J. — Religious Reformation Imperatively Demanded. 

Bishop Colenso's Enquiries Answered. Lond., 1864. 
BiRKS, T. R. — The Exodus of Israel; a Reply to Recent Objections. 

Lond., 1863. 

Briggs, F. W. — The Two Testimonies. Last Objections to Ration- 
alism. Being a Reply to Bishop Colenso's Pentateuch and Book 
of Joshua. Lond., 1863. 

Browne, G. H. — The Pentateuch and the Elohistic Psalms, in 
Reply to Bishop Colenso. Lond., 1863. 

Bullock, C. — Bible Inspiration. Lond., 1863. 

Candlish, R. S. — Lectures on the Book of Genesis. 3 vols., Lond., 
1862. 

Carey, C. S.— The Bible or the Bishop? Lond., 1863. 
Carylon, C. — A Few More Words Addressed to the Bishops, etc. 
Lond., 1863. 

Ciiamberlin, W. — A Plain Reply to Bishop Colenso. Lond., 1863. 

Colenso, Bishop. — Letter to the Laity of the Diocese of Natal. 
Lond., 1864. Trial of the Bishop of Natal for Erroneous Teach- 
ing. Cape Town, 1864. Foreign Missions and Mosaic Tradi- 
tions. A Lecture. Lond., 1865. 

Gumming, J. — Moses Right and Bishop Colenso Wrong. Popular 
Lectures in Weekly Numbers. Lond., 1863. 

Davidson, P. — The Pentateuch Vindicated from the Objections and 
Misrepresentations of Bishop Colenso. Lond., 1863. 

Drew, G. S. — Bishop Colenso's Examination of the Pentateuch 
Examined. Lond., 1863. 

Family of Judah: a Refutation of Colenso's First Objection to the 
Pentateuch. By a Layman. Lond., 1863. 

FowLE, W. H. — A Few Remarks on Bishop Colenso on the Penta- 
teuch. Lond., 1863. 

Fowler, C. H. — Fallacies of Colenso: a Review of the Bishop of 
Natal. Cine, 1864. 

Fowler, F. W. — Vindex Pentateuchi. An Answer to Bishop Co- 
lenso on the Pentateuch. Lond., 1863. 

Garland, G. V. — Plain possible Solutions of the Objections to 
Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch. Lond,, 1863. 

Gaussen, L. — The Canon of Holy Scripture. Lond., 1863. 

Gibson, J.— Present Truths in Theology. 2 vols., Glasg., 1863. 

Green, W. H. — The Pentateuch Vindicated from the Aspersions of 
Bishop Colenso. N. Y., 1863. 

Gresswell, E. — Objections of Bishop Colenso. Part I Considered. 
Lond., 1863. 

Griffin, J. N.— Dr. Colenso and the Pentateuch. Dubl., 1863. 

Hare, W. H.— Letter to Bishop Colenso. Lond., 1863. 

Haycroft, N. — Moses and Colenso; or, The Divine Authority of the 

Books of Moses and the Objections of Dr. Colenso. Lond., 1863. 
HiGGiNSON, E. — The Spirit of the Bible. 2 vols., Lond., 1863. 
Hlll, M. — Christ, or Colenso: a Full Reply to Bishop Colenso's 

Objections. Lond., 1863. 
Hirschfelder, J. M. — The Scriptures Defended. Reply to Colenso. 

Toronto, 1864. 



APPENDIX. 



607 



Historic (The) Character of the Pentateuch Vindicated: Reply to 
Part I of Bishop Colenso's "Critical Examination." Lond., 1863. 

HoARE, W. H. — Letter to Bishop Colenso. Lond., 1863. 

Houghton, W.— Some of Bishop Colenso's Objections Examined. 
Lond., 1863. 

Ingram, G. S. — Bishop Colenso Answered. Lond., 1863. 
Jewish (A) Reply to Dr. Colenso's Criticism on the Pentateuch. 
Lond., 1865. 

Jones, E. R.— Christ's Testimony to Moses. Lond., 1863. 
(ONES, Sir W. — Christianity and Common Sense. Lond., 1863. 
JUKES, A. — The Types of Genesis Considered. Lond., 1863. 
KiRKUs, W. — Orthodoxy, Scripture, and Reason. Lond., 1864. 
Layman (A) of the Church of England.— Historical Character of 

the Pentateuch: Reply to Colenso's "Critical Examination.'^ 

Lond., 1863. 

Layman (A). — New Testament and the Pentateuch. Lond., 1863. 

McCaul, a. — An Examination of Bishop Colenso's Difficulties with 
Regard to the Pentateuch. Lond., 1864. 

McCaul, J. B. — Bishop Colenso's Criticism Criticised. Lond., 1863. 

McNeile, H. — Historical Veracity of the Pentateuch. Lond., 1863. 

Mahan, M. — Spiritual Point of View: an Answer to Bishop Co- 
lenso. N. Y., 1863. 

Mann, J. H. — Moses Defended against the Attacks of Dr. Colenso. 
Lond., 1863. 

Marsh, J. B. — Is the Pentateuch Historically True? Lond., 1863. 
Marshall, Judge. — Full Review and Exposure of Bishop Colenso's 

Errors and Miscalculations in his Work. Lond., 1864. 
Maurice, F. D. — Claims of the Bible and of Science. Lond., 1864. 
Moon, R. — The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Considered with 

Reference to the Objections of the Bishop of Natal. Lond., 1863. 
MooRE, D. — Divine Authority of the Pentateuch Vindicated. 

Lond., 1864. 

MoREAu, E. B. — Examination of Some of Bishop Colenso's Objec- 
tions. Lond., 1863. 

Mosaic Origin of the Pentateuch, in connection with Parts II 
and III of Bishop Colenso's Critical Examination. Lond., 1864. 

Mozley, J. B. — Subscription to the Articles. Lond., 1863. 

Ollivant, a. — A Second Letter to the Clergy of Llandaff. Lond., 
1863. 

Page, J. R. — The Pretensions of Bishop Colenso Considered. Lond., 
1863. 

Palmee, G. — Scripture Facts and Scientific Doubts. Lond., 1863. 
Pentateuch (the) and its Opponents. Lond., 1863. 
Phillpot, H. — The Textual Witness to the Truth and Divine Au- 
thority of the Pentateuch. Lond., 1863. 
Possibilities of Creation. Lond., 1862. 
Post, J.— The Bible for All. Lond., 1862. 

Presbyter Anglic anus. — Critical Analysis of the Pentateuch; 

Lond., 1863. 
Pritchard, C. — Vindicise Mosaicas. Lond., 1863. 
Rask, R.— a Short Tractate on the Longevity Ascribed to the 

Patriarchs. Lond., 1863. 
Rationalism Unphilosophical, and Faith the Gift of God. 

Lond., 1863. 

Remarks on Bishop Colenso's Work; or. Rationalism Shown to 

be Irrational. Lond., 1863. 
Rogers, B. B.— Free Inquiry into Colenso's Difficulties. Lond., 

1863. 



608 



APPENDIX. 



Rogers, H. — A Vindication of Bishop Colenso. Edinb., 1863. 
Savile, B. W. — Man; or, The Old and New Philosophy. Lond., 
1863. 

The author controverts the views of Darwin, Owen, Huxley, Bunsen, Colenso, 
and others. 

Scott, W. A. — Moses and the Pentateuch: a Reply to Bishop Co- 
lenso. Lond., 1863. 

SiLVKK, A. — The Holy Word in its own Defense: addressed to 
Bishop Colenso. N. Y., 1863. 

Sinclair, J. — On Free Thought. Lond., 1865. 

Spry, W. J. — Bishop Colenso and the Descent of Jacob into Egypt. 
Part L Lond., 1863. 

Stanley, A. P. — A letter to the Lord Bishop of London on the 
State of Subscription in the Church of England and in the Uni- 
versity of Oxford. Lond., 1863. 

Swete, H. B. — What is the Right Method of Conducting the 
Defense of the Old Testament in the Rationalistic Controversy 
which has Come upon the Church? Lond., 1863. 

Taylok. I. — Considerations on the Pentateuch. Lond., 1863. 

Thornton, T.— Life of Moses. Lond., 1863. 

Turner, J. B. — An Answer to the Difficulties in Bishop Colenso's 

Book on the Pentateuch. Lond., 1863. 
Tyllh, T. — Christ the Lord; with a Reply to Bishop Colenso. 

Lond., 1863. 

What is Truth? A Letter to Bishop Colenso. Lond., 1864. 
WicKES, W.— Moses or the Zulu? Lend., 1863. 
Wordsworth. C. — Inspiration of the Bible. Lond., 1863. 

Cone, Orello. — Gospel Criticism and Historical Christianity. A 
Study of the Gospels and of the History of the Gospel Canon 
during the Second Century. With a Consideration of the Re- 
sults of Modern Criticism. N. Y., 1891. The Gospel and its 
Earliest Interpretations. N. Y., 1893. 

Cook, Joseph. — Boston Monday Lectures. With Preludes on Current 
Events. Post., 9 vols., 1877-80. 

CooKE, JosiAH Parsons. — Religion and Chemistry. A Restatement 
of an Old Argument. N. Y., new ed., 1880. The Credentials of 
Science, the Warrant of Faith. N. Y., 2d ed., 1894. 

Cowley, E. — The Writers of Genesis and Related Topics. N. Y.) 
1890. 

Dabney, Robert L. — The Sensualistic Philosophy of the Nineteenth 

Century Considered. N. Y., 1875; 2d ed., 1888. 
Dale, R. W. — The Living Christ and the Four Gospels. Lond. and 

N. Y., 1890. 

Dallixger. W. H. — The Creator and What We May Know of the 
Method of Creation. Fernley Lecture. Lond., 1887. 

Davidson, Dr. S. — Treatise on Biblical Criticism. Lond., 1855. 

Dawson, J. W. — Archaia; or, Studies of the Cosmogony and Natural 
History of the Hebrew Scriptures. Montreal, 1860. The Story of 
the Earth and Man. N. Y., new ed., 1874. Nature and the Bible. 
A Course of Lectures delivered on the Morse Foundation of the 
Union Theological Seminary, 1874. N. Y., 1875. The Origin 
of the World, according to Revelation and Science. Lond. and 
N. Y., 4th ed., 1886. Eden Lost and Won. Studies of the Early 
History and Final Destiny of Man as Taught in Nature and 
Revelation. N. Y., 1896. Relics of Primeval Life. Beginning 
of Life in the Dawn of Geological Time. N. Y., 1898. 

Dewar, E. H. — Brief History of German Theology. Lond., 1844. 



APPEJSTDIX. 



609 



Dew ART, E. H. — Jesus the Messiah in Prophecy and Fulfillment. A 
Review and Refutation of the Negative Theory of Messianic 
Prophecy. Cine, 1891. 

DeWitt, John. — What is Inspiration? A Fresh Study of the Ques- 
tion, with New and Discriminative Replies. N. Y., 1893. 

Dickson, W. P. — The Methods of Higher Criticism. Bost. 

DiGGLE, John W. — Religious Doubt: its Nature, Treatment, Causes, 
Difficulties, Consequence, and Dissolution. N. Y., 1895. 

DiMAN, J. Lewis. — The Theistic Argument as Affected by Recent 
Theories. 1881. 

DoDS, Marcus. — An Introduction to the New Testament. Lond. and 
N. Y., 1889. 

Donaldson, T. W. — Essay on Christian Orthodoxy. Lond., 1857. 
Draper, J. W. — Intellectual Development of Europe. N. Y., 1863. 

History of the Conflict between Religion and Science. N. Y., 

1875. 

Driver, S. R. — Isaiah: his Life and Times, and the Writings which 
Bear his Name. Lond. and N. Y., 1888. An Introduction to the 
Literature of the Old Testament. N. Y., 2d ed., 1891. 

Drummond, Henry. — The Ascent of Man. N. Y., 1894. 

Edersheim, Alfred. — Prophecy and History in Relation to the 
Messiah: the Warburton Lectures for 1880-1884; with two ap- 
pendices on the Arrangement, Analysis, and Recent Criticism of 
the Pentateuch. Lond. and N. Y., new ed., 1891. 

Elliott, W. — Old Theology the True Theology. Lond., 1861. 

Emerson, George H. — The Bible and Modern Thought. Bost., 1890. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. — An Address to the Senior Class in Divinity 
College, Cambridge. Bost., 1877. 

Essays and Revie^vs. Lond. and Bost., 1861. 



Works Arising from the above Oxford Essays. 

Aids to Faith: Replies to Essays and Reviews. Lond., 1863. 
Baylay, C. F. R. — "Essays and Reviews" compared with Reason. 
Lond., 1861. 

Buchanan, J, — "Essays and Reviews" Examined. Lond., 1861. 
Close, F. — Critical Examination of "Essays and Reviews." Lond., 
186L 

Denison, G. a. — Analysis of "Essays and Reviews." Lond., 1861. 
Dialogues on Essays and Reviews. Lond., 1862. 
Girdlestone, E. — Remarks on Essays and Reviews. Lond., 1861. 
Jelf, R. W. — Evidence of Unsoundness in Essays and Reviews. 
Lond., 1861. 

Kennard, R. B. — Essays and Reviews. Protest addressed to the 
Bishop of Salisbury. Lond., 1861. The Essays and Reviews: 
their Origin, History, General Character and Significance, Per- 
secution, Prosecution, the Judgment of the Arches Court, Re- 
view of Judgment. Lond., 1863. 

LusHiNGTON, S.— Judgment delivered on Essays and Reviews. 
Lond., 1862. 

Milton, J.— Prophecy of Essays and Reviews and his Judgment. 
Lond., 1861. 

MoBERLY, G.— Remarks on Essays and Reviews. Lond., 1861. 
Replies to Essays and Reviews, by Goulburn, Rose, and others. 
Lond., 1862. 

WoRN-OuT Neology.— Strictures upon Essays and Reviews. Lond., 
1861. 



610 



APPENDIX. 



Evans, L. J., and Smith, H. P. — Biblical Scholarship and Inspiration. 

Two Papers. Cine, 1891. 
Faith and Criticism: Essays by Congregationalists. Lond. and 

N. Y., 1893. 

Farkau, a. S. — A Critical History of Free Thought in Reference to 
the Christian Religion. Lond., 1863. 

FisHKR, G. P. — Essays on the Supernatural Origin of Christianity. 
With special reference to the Works of Renan, Strauss, and the 
Tiibingen School. N. Y., 1865. Faith and Rationalism, with 
Short Supplementary Essays on Related Topics. N. Y., 1879. 

FiSKE. Joiix. — Darwinism, and other Essays. Lond., 1879. The 
Destiny of Man Viewed in the Light of his Origin. Bost., 1884. 
The Idea of God as Affected by Modern Knowledge. Bost. and 
N. Y.. 1885. Through Nature to God. Bost. and N. Y., 1899. 
Life Everlasting. Bost. and N. Y., 1901. 

Flint, Rohkrt. Anti-Theistic Theories. Edinb., 1879. 

Forbes, John.— The Servant of the Lord. Edinb., 1890. 

Foster, Randolph S. — Studies in Theology: Theism. Cosmic 
Theism; or, The Theism of Nature. N. Y., 1889. The Super- 
natural Book. N. Y., 1891. 

Frankland. B. — Intuitionalism; or, Insufficiency of Pure Reason. 
Lond., 1861. 

Frotiiingiiam. O. B. — Tales from the Patriarchs. Bost., 1864. 

Fi RXEss, "W. H. — Jesus and his Biographers. Bost., 1838. 

Gage, J. A. — The Life of Jesus a Fact, not a Fiction. A Response 

to M. Renan's Vie de J»'sus. Lond., 1863. 
Garbett, E. — The Bible and its Critics. Boyle Lectures for 1861. 

Lond., 1861. 

Girdlestone, a. G. — Christianity and Modern Scepticism. Lond., 
1882. 

Girdlestone, R. B. — The Foundations of the Bible: Studies in Old 

Testament Criticism. Lond., 1890. Doctor Doctorum. Lond., 1892. 
Gladden, Washington. — Who Wrote the Bible? A Book for the 

People. N. Y., 1891. 
Gladstone, W. E. — The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture. Rev. 

and enl. ed., Lond., 1892. 
Gloag, p. J. — Introduction to the Johannine Writings. Edinb. and 

N. Y., 1891. 

Godet, F. — Studies on the New Testament. Ed. by U. A. Lyttleton. 
London and N. Y., 2d ed., 1879. Lectures in Defense of the 
Christian Faith. Transl. by W. H. Lyttleton. Lond. and N. Y., 
1881. The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel. Lond., 1884. 

Godet, F., Howson, J. S., and Others. — The Higher Criticism. N. Y., 
1893. 

Gordon, George A. — The New Epoch for Faith. Bost. and N. Y., 1901. 

GosTwicK, Joseph. — German Culture and Christianity: their Con- 
troversy in the Time 1770-1880. Lond., 1882. 

GorLBURN, E. M. — Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Lond., 1857. 

Gray, Asa. — Natural Science and Religion. N. Y., 1880. 

Green, William Henry. — Moses and the Prophets: the Old Testa- 
ment in the Jewish Church, by W. R. Smith; The Prophets 
and Prophecy in Israel, by A. Kuenen; and the Prophets of 
Israel, by W. R. Smith, reviewed. N. Y., 1883. The Higher 
Criticism of the Pentateuch. N. Y., 1895. 

Greg, W. R.— Enigmas of Life. Bost. and N. Y., 1873. The Creed 
of Christendom: its Foundation Contrasted with its Super- 
structure. 2 vols., Lond., 4th ed., 1877. 



APPENDIX. 



611 



OuYOT, Arnold.— Creation ; or, The Biblical Cosmogony in the Light 

of Modern Science. N. Y., 1884. 
Hamilton, W. T. — Defense of the Pentateuch against Scepticism. 

Lond., 1852. 

Harman, H. M.— Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures. 
N. Y., 1878. 

Harris, Samuel. — The Philosophical Basis of Theism. An Examina- 
tion of the Personality of Man to ascertain his Capacity to Know 
and Serve God, and the Validity of the Principles underlying 
the Defense of Theism. N. Y., 1883. 

Harrison, A. J. — Problems of Christianity and Scepticism. Lessons 
from Twenty Years' Experience in the Field of Christian Evi- 
dence. Lond. and N. Y., 1891. 

Hebert, C. — Neology not True and Truth not New. 2d ed., Lond., 
1861. 

Hedge, F. H. — Reason in Religion. Bost., 1865. 
Heurtly, C. a. — Inspiration of Holy Scriptures. Lend., 1861. 
Historical Evidences of the Old Testament and the New Testament. 
N. Y., 1891. 

Hodder, Alfred. — Adversaries of the Skeptic: a New Inquiry into 

Human Knowledge. N. Y., 1901. 
Hooker, W.— Philosophy of Unbelief. N. Y. 

HoRTON, Robert P. — Inspiration and the Bible. An Inquiry. Lond. 

and N. Y., 1890. Revelation and the Bible. An Attempt at 

Reconstruction. Lond. and N. Y., 1892. 
Hughes, T. — Religio Laici. Lond., 1861. 

Hunt, John. — History of Religious Thought in England, from the 
Reformation to the End of the Last Century. 3 vols., Lond., 
1870-73. 

Huxley, Thomas H. — Essays upon Some Controverted Questions; 
Lond., 1892. Science and Hebrew Tradition. Essays. N. Y., 
1894. 

Irrationalism of Infidelity, a Reply to Newman's "Phases." Lond.i 
1853. 

Iverach, James. — Christianity and Evolution. Lond. and N. Y., 
1894. 

James, H. — The Old and New Theology. Lond., 1861. 
Jelf, W. E. — Supremacy of Scripture: a Letter to Dr. Temple. 
Lond., 1861. 

Jevons, Frank Byron. — An Introduction to the History of Religion^ 
N. Y., 1897. 

Johnston, Howard A. — Moses and the Pentateuch. Popular State- 
ment of the Theories of Higher Criticism, with Some Reasons 
for Not Accepting Them. Cine, 1893. 

Kellogg, S. H. — The Book of Leviticus. Lond. and N. Y., 1891. 

Kennedy, John. — The Unity of Isaiah. Lond., 1891. 

KiDD, Benjamin. — Social Evolution. With Appendix. Reply to 
Criticisms. Lond., 1898. 

KiNGSLEY, C. — Sermons for the Times. Lond., 1858. Sermons: 
Good News of God. Lond., 1859. 

Ladd, George T. — The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture. A Critical, 
Historical, and Dogmatic Inquiry into the Origin and Nature 
of the Old and New Testaments. 2 vols., N. Y. and Edinb., 1883. 
What is the Bible? An Inquiry into the Origin and Nature of 
the Old and New Testaments in the Light of Modern Biblical 
Study. N. Y., 1888. 

Lang, Andrew. — The Making of Religion. N. Y., 1898. 

Langford, J. a.— Religious Skepticism and Infidelity. Lond., 1850. 



612 



APPENDIX. 



Leavitt, J. McDowell. — Reasons for Faith in the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury. N. Y., 1885. 

Lecky, W. E. H. — History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of 
Rationalism in Europe. 2 vols., Lond. and N. Y., new ed., 1867. 

LeCo^'te, Joseph. — Religion and Science. A Series of Sunday Lec- 
tures on the Relation of Natural and Revealed Religion; or. The 
Truths Revealed by Nature and Scripture. N. Y., 1874. 

Lee, W. — Recent Forms of Unbelief; Some Account of Renan's Vie 
de Jesus. Lond., 1864. 

Leslie, J. P. — Man's Origin and Destiny Sketched from the Platform 
of the Physical Sciences. 1881. 

Lewis-, Taylek. — The Six Days of Creation; or, The Scriptural Cos- 
mology, with the Ancient Idea of Time-Worlds in Distinction 
from the Worlds in Space. N. Y., 1879. 

Lias, J. J. — Principles of Biblical Criticism. Lond., 1893. 

LiDDOX, Henry Parry. — Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, Canon of 
Christ Church, etc. Ed. by J. O. Johnston and R. J. Wilson. 
With Portraits and Illustrations. 4 vols., Lond. and N. Y., 1894. 

LiGHTFooT, J. B. — Biblical Essays. Lond. and N. Y., 1893. 

Loraixe, N. — The Skeptic's Creed: Can it be Reasonably Held? Is 
it Worth the Holding? A Review of the Popular Aspects of 
Modern Unbelief. Lond., 1885. The Battle of Belief. Lond., 
1891. 

Lymax, Albert J. — Freedom and Mediation (pamphlet). Bost., 
1898. (Sermon before the National Council of Congregational 
Churches at Portland, Oregon.) 

McCaul. a. — Rationalism and Deistic Infidelity. Three Letters. 
Lond., 1861. 

McCombie, W. — Modern Civilization in Relation to Christianity. 
Lond., 1863. 

McCosH, James. — The Religious Aspect of Evolution. N. Y., 1888. 
McCurdy, Jos, Frederick. — History, Prophecy, and the Monuments. 

2 vols., N. Y., 1894-96. 
McGiffert, a. C. — History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age. N. 

Y., 1897. 

Mackay, R. W. — The Tiibingen School and its Antecedents: a Re- 
view of the History and Present Condition of Modern Theology. 
Lond., 1863. Rise and Progress of Christianity. Lond., 1854. 

McRealsham, E. D. — Romans Dissected. N. Y., 1891. 

A scathing rebuke of the destructive critics. 

Mair, Alexaxder. — Studies in Christian Evidences: being Apolo- 
getics for the Times. Edinb., 3d ed., 1894. 

Malax, S. C— Philosophy or Truth? Lond., 1865. 

Maxsel, H. L. — Limits of Religious Thought. Bampton Lectures. 
Lond., 1859. Examination of Maurice's Strictures on Bampton 
Lectures. Lond., 1859. 

Martixeal', James. — Religion as Affected by Modern Materialism. 
With an Introduction by H. W. Bellows. Lond. and N. Y., 1875. 
Essays, Philosophical and Theological. 2 vols., Lond., Bost., 
and N. Y., 1883. The Seat of Authority In Religion. Lond. and 
N. Y., 1890. 

(Mathesox-, George.) — Aids to the Study of German Theology. 

Edinb. and N. Y., 1874. 
Maurice, Frederick. — The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, 

chiefly Told in his Own Letters, edited by his Son. 2 vols., N. Y., 

1884. 

Maurice, F. D. — Claims of the Bible and of Science. Lond., 1862. 
Theological Essays. Lond., 2d ed., 1853. What is Revelation? 



APPENDIX. 



613 



Lond., 1859. The Ground and Object of Hope for Mankind. 
Four Sermons. Lond., 1868. 

Mead, Charles Marsh.— Christ and Criticism. N. Y., 1893. Super- 
natural Revelation: an Essay Concerning the Basis of the Chris- 
tian Faith. N. Y., 1893. 

Methodist Review. N. Y., 1890 and 1891. Editorials by J. W. Men- 
denhall, on the Higher Critics. 

MiALL, E. — Basis of Belief: Examination of Christianity. Lond 
1861. 

MiVART, St. George. — The Genesis of Species. Lond., 1870-71. Con- 
temporary Evolution. N. Y., 1876. 

Modern Skepticism. A Course of (eleven) Lectures delivered at 
the request of the Christian Evidence Society. With Explana- 
tory Paper by C. J. Ellicott. Lond., 9th ed., 1874. 

Morris, E. D. — A Calm Review of the Inaugural Address of Pro- 
fessor C. A. Briggs. N. Y., 1891. 

MozLEY, T. M. A. — Reminiscences, Chiefly of Oriel College and the 
Oxford Movement. 2 vols., N. Y. and Bost., 1882. 

MuNGER, T. T. — The Freedom of Faith. Bost., 1883. The Appeal to 
Life. Bost. and N. Y., 1887. Horace Bushnell, Preacher and 
Theologian. Bost. and N. Y., 1899. 

MuNHALL, L. W. — The Highest Critics vs. the Higher Critics. N. Y., 
1892. 

Nash, Henry S. — The History of the Higher Criticism of the New 

Testament. N. Y., 1900. 
Nast, William. — The Gospel Records: Genuineness, Authenticity, 

Verity, and Inspiration. Cine, 1878. 
Nelson, D. — Infidelity: its Cause and Cure. Lond., 1853. 
Newman, F. W. — Phases of Faith. Lond., 1850. Essays toward a 

Church of the Future. Lond., 1854. Theism, Doctrinal and 

Practical. Lond., 1858. The Soul: its Sorrows and Aspirations. 

Lond., 1861. Sermons on Theory of Religious' Belief. Lond., 

1844. Development of Christian Doctrine. Lond., 1846. 
Newman, John Henry. — Apologia pro Vita Sua. Lond., new ed., 

1878; N. Y., 1869. 
Newton, R. Heber. — The Book of the Beginnings: a Study of Genesis, 

with an Introduction to the Pentateuch. N. Y., 1884. 
Noyes, G. N. — Theological Essays. Bost., 3d ed., 1860. 

This work contains essays by Kowland Williams, Jowett, Powell, Stanley, and 
others. It advocates the Broad Church theories. 

O'Connor, W. A. — Miracles not Antecedently Incredible. Lond., 1861. 
Ottley, Robert Lawrence.— Aspects of the Old Testament. (Bamp- 

ton Lectures for 1897.) N. Y., 1897. 
Palmer, G.— Scripture Facts and Scientific Doubts. Edinb., 1863. 

A defense of Scriptiu-e from the objections of geologists, statisticians, and others. 
Parker, Theo. — Discourses on Religion. Bost, 1842. Sermons on 
Theism, Atheism, and Popular Theology. Bost., 1853. Ten 
Sermons on Religion. Bost., 1853. World of Matter and Mind. 
Bost, 1865. 

Extracts from unpublished sermons. 
Parkinson, R. — Rationalism and Revelation. Lond., 1838. 
Paton, J. B.— A Review of the "Vie de Jesus" of M, Renan. Lond., 
1864. 

Peabody, A. P.— Christianity the Religion of Nature. Bost., 1863. 

Christianity and Science. Bost, 1874. 
Pearson, T.— Infidelity. Republished from Lond. ed. in N. Y., 1853. 



m. 



614 



APPENDIX. 



Pike, Granville Ross. — The Divine Drama, The Manifestation of 
God in the Universe. N. Y., 1899. 

Plumptre, E. H. — Movements of Religious Thought. Three Ser- 
mons Preached before the University of Cambridge in the Lent 
Term, 1879. Lond., 1879. 

Porter, J. L. — The Pentateuch and the Gospel. Lond., 1864. 

Progress of Religious Thought, as Illustrated in the Protestant 
Church of France. Ed. by J. R. Beard. Lond., 1861. 

This work contains essays by Messrs. Colani, Seliolten, Reville, Scherer, and 
Renan. 

PusEY. E. B. — Historical Inquiry into German Rationalism. Lond., 
1828. Daniel the Prophet. Lond., 1865. (Eirenicon. Parts 
I-III.) The Church of England, a Portion of Christ's one Holy 
Catholic Church. Lond., 1866-70. 

QuACKENBOS, JoHx DuNCAN. — Euemies and Evidences of Christian- 
ity. N. Y., 1899. 

Rationallsm and Remclation. (Anon.) Lond., 1865. 

Raymom), Braufokd p. — Christianity and the Christ. A Study of 
Christian Evidences. N. Y,, 1894. 

Religious Aspects of the Age. N. Y., 1858. 

Rigg, J. H. — Modern Anglican Theology. Lond., 1859. 

Ripley, George. — Latest Forms of Infidelity. Bost., 1840. 

Risiiell, C. W. — The Higher Criticism. An Outline of Modern 
Biblical Study. Introd. by H. M. Harman. N. Y. and Cine, 
1895. The Foundations of the Christian Faith. N. Y., 1899. 

Robertson, Frederick William. — Life, Letters, Lectures, and Ad- 
dresses. N. Y., 1870. 

Robertson, J. — The Early Religion of Israel, as set forth by Biblical 
Writers and Modern Critical Historians. Baird Lecture for 
1889. Lond. and N. Y., 1892. 

Robertson, J. M. — Short History of Free Thought. Lond., 1899. 

Robins, S.— Defense of the Faith: Forms of Unbelief. Lond., 1861. 

Rogers, Henry. — The Superhuman Origin of the Bible Inferred from 
Itself. Lond., 1874. 

Rogers, Robert William. — A History of Babylonia and Assyria. 
2 vols., N. Y., 1900. 

Romanes, G. J. — A Candid Examination of Theism. Lond., 1877. 
Thoughts on Religion. Ed. by Charles Gore. 2d ed., Chicago, 
1895. Life and Letters of. Written and edited by his wife. 
N. Y., 1897. 

Rose, H. J. — State of Protestantism in Germany. Lond., 2d ed., 1829. 

Ryder, A. G. — Scriptural Doctrine of Acceptance with God, con- 
sidered in Reference to Neologian Hermeneutics. Lond., 1865. 

St. Clair, George. — Darwinism and Design. Lond., 1873. 

Salmon, G. — An Historical Introduction to the Study of the Books 
of the New Testament. Lond., new ed., 1892. 

Sanday, W. — The Gospels in the Second Century. An Examination 
of the Critical Part of a Work entitled "Supernatural Religion." 
Lond., 1876. The Oracles of God: Nine Lectures on the Nature 
and Extent of Biblical Inspiration, and on the Special Signifi- 
cance of the Old Testament Scriptures at the Present Time, with 
two Appendices. Lond. and N. Y., 1891. 

Sawyer, L. A. — Daniel with its Apocryphal Additions. Bost., 1863. 

Sayce, a. H. — The "Higher Criticism" and the Verdict of the Monu- 
ments. Lond. and N. Y., 1894. Fresh Light from the Ancient 
Monuments. Lond., 2d ed., 1884. 

Schaff, Philip. — ^What is Church History? A Vindication of the 



APPEI^DIX. 



615 



Idea of Historical Development. Phila., 1846. Germany: its 
Theology, etc. Phila., 1857. The Person of Christ; the Miracle 
of History; with a Reply to Strauss and Renan. Bost., 1865. 
One of the best of the replies to the Rationalists. 

ScHAFF AND RoussELL. — The Christ of the Gospels, and the Romance 
of M. Renan. Lond., 1864, 

ScHMAUK, Theodore B. — The Negative Criticism and the Old Testa- 
ment: an all-around Survey of the Negative Criticism from the 
Orthodox Point of View, with some particular Reference to 
Cheyne's "Founders of Old Testament Criticism." Lebanon, 
Pa., 1894. 

ScHMucKEE, S. M. — Errors of Modern Infidelity Refuted. Phila., 
1848. 

ScHURMAN, Jacob Gould. — Belief in God. Its Origin, Nature, and 
Basis. Being the Winkley Lectures in the Andover Theological 
Seminary for the Year 1890. N. Y., 1891. 

Scott, W. A. — The Christ of the Apostles' Creed: the Voice of the 
Church against Arianism, Strauss, and Renan, with an Appen- 
dix. N. Y., 1867. 

Seaman, M. — Christian Armed against Infidelity. Lond., 1837. 

Sewell, W. — On the Inspiration of the Holy Scripture. Lond., 1861. 

Shairp, J. C. — Culture and Religion in Some of their Relations. 
Edinb., Bost., and N. Y., 1880. 

Shedd, William G. T. — Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy. A Miscellany. 
N. Y., 1893. 

Shields, C. W. — Religion and Science in their Relation to Philoso- 
phy; suggested by Tyndall's Address at Belfast. N. Y., 1875. 

Smith, C. — Prize Essays on Infidelity. Lond., 1861. 

Smith, G. — Rational Religion and Objections of Bampton Lectures 
for '58. Lond., 1861. 

Smith, George Adam. — Isaiah. 2 vols., Lond., 1888-90. Modern Criti- 
cism and the Preaching of the Old Testament. N. Y., 1901. Yale 
Lectures on Preaching. 

Smith, Goldwin. — Guesses at the Riddle of Existence. New ed. with 
additions. N. Y., 1898. 

Smith, W. Robertson.— Religion of the Semites. N. Y., 1889. The 
Old Testament in the Jewish Church. Lectures on Biblical 
Criticism. Lond. and N. Y., 2d ed., 1892. 

Smyth, Newsman.— Old Faiths in New Light. N. Y., 1879. The 
Orthodox Theology of To-day. N. Y., 1883. The Place of Death 
in Evolution. N. Y., 1897. 

Southall, James C— The Recent Origin of Man, as illustrated by 
Geology and the Modern Science of Prehistoric Archaeology. 
Phila., 1875. 

Squier, M. p.— Reason and the Bible. N. Y., 1860. 

Stanley, A. P.— The Bible: its Form and Substance. Lond., 1865. 

Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. 3 vols., Lond. 

and N. Y., 1863-1876. Sinai and Palestine in Connection with 

their History. N. Y., new ed., 1883. 
Stephen, Leslie.— History of English Thought in the Eighteenth 

Century. Lond. and N. Y., 2d ed., 1880. An Agnostic's Apology, 

and Other Essays. N. Y., 1893. 
Sterrett, J. MacBride.— Reason and Authority in Religion. N. Y., 

1890. 

Storrs, Richard S.— The Divine Origin of Christianity. Indicated by 
its Historical Effects. N. Y., 1884. 



616 



APPENDIX. 



Studia Biblica: Essays on Biblical Criticism by Members of the 

University of Oxford. 1885-91. 
SuPERNATUKAL RELiiiio.N. (Anon.) (W. R. Cassels.) 3 vols., Lond., 

1874. 

Taylor, J. J. — Retrospect of Religious Life in England. 1845. 
Terry, Milton S. — The New Apologetic. N. Y. and Cine, 1897. 
Testimony of Skeptics to the Truth of Christianity. Lond., 1861. 
TiiAYER, J. H. — The Change of Attitude toward the Bible. Bost., 
1891. 

Thompson, Joseph P. — Man in Genesis and Geology; or, The Biblical 

Account of Man's Creation Tested by Scientific Theories of his 

Origin and Antiquity. N. Y., 1869. 
Thompson, R. A.— Christian Theism. Lond., 1863. 
Thomson, W. H. — The Great Argument; or, Jesus Christ in the 

Old Testament. N. Y., 1884. 
TowNSENi), L. T.— Bible Theology and Modern Thought. Bost., 1883. 

Evolution or Creation. N. Y. and Chic, 1898. 
Toy, C. H. — Judaism and Christianity. Bost., 1890. 
Tracts for Priests and People, by various writers, 1st and 2d series. 

Lond., 1862. 

Tucker, L.— Lectures on Infidelity. N. Y., 1837. 
TuLLiuGE, H.— Triumphs of the Bible. N. Y., 1863. 

A defense of Scripture against the objections of the Slieptical Scientific School. 

TuLLOcH. John. — The Christ of the Gospels and the Christ of Modern 
Criticism. Lectures on Renan's "Vie de J^'sus." Lond., N. Y., 
and Cine, 1865. Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy 
in England in the Seventeenth Century. 2 vols., Edinb., new ed., 
1874. Movements of Religious Thought in Britain during the 
Nineteenth Century. St. Giles Lectures. Lond. and N. Y., 1885. 

Tyler, John M. — The Whence and the Whither of Man: a brief His- 
tory of his Origin and Development through Conformity to 
Environments. N. Y., 1896. 

Tyndall, John. — Address delivered before the British Association 
assembled at Belfast. Lond. and N. Y., 1875. 

Van Dyke, Henry.— The Gospel for an Age of Doubt. N. Y., 1896. 
The Gospel for a World of Sin. N. Y., 1899. 

'W.SXKER, J. B. — Philosophy of Skepticism and Ultraism. N. Y., 1857. 

Walther, D. — Reply to Newman's Phases of Faith. Lond., 1851. 

Ward, Wilfrid. — William George Ward and the Oxford Movement. 
Lond. and N. Y., 2d ed., 1890. William George Ward and the 
Catholic Revival. Lond. and N. Y., 1893. 

Warring, Charles B. — Genesis L and Modern Science. N. Y., 1892. 

Watts, Robert. — The Newer Criticism and the Analogy of the Faith. 
A Reply to Lectures by W. R. Smith, on the Old Testament in 
the Jewish Church. Edinb. and N. Y., 1882. The Reign of 
Causality. Edinb., 1888. 

Weie, J. F. — The Way, the Nature and Means of Revelation. Edinb., 
1889. 

W^ELCH, R. B. — Faith and Modern Thought. With an Introduction 
by T. Lewis. N. Y., 1876. 

Westcott, Brooke Foss. — Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, 
with Historical and Explanatory Notes. Lond., 1860; N. Y., 
1887; Bost., 1862. 

Westfield, T. C. — Seven Essays on Universal Science, embracing In- 
vestigations of the Mosaic Cosmogony, and the Interpretation 
of the Scriptures. Lond., 1863. 

Whately, Abp. — Essays on Dangers to Christian Faith. Lond., 1857^ 



APPENDIX. 



617 



White, Andrew D. — The Warfare of Science. N. Y., 1876. 
Williams, James Milton. — Rational Theology: eight Essays. Chic. 
1889. 

Williams, R. — Rational Godliness after the Mind of Christ. Lond., 
1855. 

WiNCHELL, Alexander. — Sketches of Creation: a Popular View of 
Some of the Grand Conclusions of the Sciences in Reference to 
the History of Matter and of Life. N. Y., 1870. The Doctrine 
of Evolution: its Data, its Principles, its Speculations, and its 
Theistic Bearings. N. Y., 1874. Reconciliation of Science and 
Religion. N. Y., 1877. Preadamites ; or, A Demonstration of 
the Existence of Men before Adam. Chic, 1880. 

Wise, Isaac M.— Pronaos to Holy Writ. Cine, 1891. 

From the Jewish standpoint. 

Wiseman, Nicholas, Cardinal. — Twelve Lectures on the Connection 
between Science and Revealed Religion, delivered in Rome. 
Lond., 1851. 

Woodman, W. — Is the Bible a Divine Revelation? Lond., 1862. 
Wordsworth, C. — Inspiration of the Bible: five Lectures. Lond., 
1862. 

Wright, C. H. H. — An Introduction to the Old Testament. N. Y., 
1891. 

Wright, G. F. — Studies in Science and Religion. Andover, 1882. 

Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences. N. Y., 1897. 
Wythe, Joseph H. — The Agreement of Science and Revelation. 

Phila., 1872. 

Young, J. — The Christ of History: an Argument. Lond., 3d ed., 1861. 

The Province of Reason: a Criticism on Mansel. Lond., 1860. 
Young, J. R. — Modern Skepticism, viewed in Relation to Modern 

Science. Lond., 1865. 

This work is an excellent answer to the doctrines of Colenso, Huxley, Lyell, and 
Darwin, respecting the IS'oachian Deluge, the Antiquity of Man, and the Origin of 
Species. 

REVIEW AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES. 

The Athenaeum, June 17, 1899, p. 746; J. S. Rait in Critical Review, 
Jan., 1900; Borden P. Bowne, The Logic of Religious Belief, Meth. 
Rev., N. Y., Oct., 1884; W. Sanday, Huxley as a Theologian, Contem. 
Rev., Sept., 1892; W. R. Harper, The Rational and the Rationalistic 
Higher Criticism, Canadian Meth. Quar., Oct., 1892; The Higher 
Criticism and its Application to the Bible, Andover Rev., Mar.-Apr., 
1893 (contains also editorial summary of the Professor H. P. Smith 
Case) ; W. Douglas Mackenzie, Evolution Theories and Christian 
Doctrine, Bib. Sac, July, 1897; W. V. Kelley, Common Sense and 
Hypercriticism, Editorial in Meth. Rev., Nov., 1898, pp. 956-966; 
B. B. Warfield, The Latest Phase of Historical Rationalism, Presb. 
Quar., Jan. and Feb., 1895; The New Rationalism, Lond. Quar., Jan., 
1896; H. C. Minton, The Place of Reason in Theology, Presb. and 
Ref. Rev., Jan., 1896; George Macloskie, Theistic Evolution, Presb. 
and Ref. Rev., Jan., 1898; Jacob A. Biddle, The New Theology, Bib. 
Sac, Jan., 1897; William North Rice, Recent Phases of Thought in 
Apologetics, Meth. Rev., Jan., 1899; H. A. Buttz, Conditions of 
Authoritative Biblical Criticism, Meth. Rev., March, 1896. 

LITERATURE OF UNITARIANISM AND UNIVERSALISM. 

For the bibliography of the Trinitarian Controversy in England, 
extending through the former half of the eighteenth century, 
consult Watts' Bibliotheca Britannica, 4 vols., Edinb., 1824; and 



618 



APPENDIX. 



Biographia Britannica, 7 vols., folio, 1747. Concerning the dis- 
cussion on 1 John v, 7, consult Darling, Cyclopaedia Bibliogra- 
phla, Lond., 1854. P'or other Unitarian publications, in addi- 
tion to those mentioned below, see Beard, Unitarianism in its 
Actual Condition, pp. 327-329. 

Allen, Joseph Hexhy. — Our Liberal Movement in Theology, chiefly 
as shown in Recollections of the History of Unitarianism in New 
England. Being a closing Course of Lectures given in the Har- 
vard Divinity School. Bost., 1882. An Historical Sketch of the 
Unitarian Movement since the Reformation. N. Y., 1894. 

Baker, A. — Our God a Consuming Fire. Lond., 1864. 

Bauclay, J. — Socinianism and Irvingism Refuted. Lond., 1845. 

Barling, J. — Review of Trinitarianism. Lond., 1847. 

Barlow, J. W. — Eternal Punishment and Eternal Death. Lond., 1864. 

Barrett, B. F.— Letters on the Divine Trinity. N. Y., 1860. Christ 
the Interpreter of Scripture. Lond., 1865. 

Barrows, Samuel J. — The Doom of the Majority of Mankind. Bost., 
1883. 

Bearu. J. R. — Historic and Artistic Illustrations of the Trinity. 
Lond., 1864. Unitarianism in its Actual Condition. Lond., 1849. 
Reasons Why I Am a Unitarian. Lond., 1860. 

Bellows, H. W.— Phi Beta Kappa Oration. 1853. 

Belsiiam, T. — Calm Inquiry into Scripture Doctrine concerning the 
Person of Christ. Lond.. 1814. 

Bonet-Maury, G. — Early Sources of Unitarian Christianity in Eng- 
land. Lond., 1884. 

Brooks, E. G. — Universalism a Practical Power. N. Y., 1863. 

Brothers' Controversy on Unitarian Opinions. Lond., 1835. 

BuRNAP, G. W.— Unitarianism. Bost., 1855. Trinity. Bost, 1845. 
Evidences. Bost., 1855. 

Carpenter, L. — Examination of the Charges against Unitarians. 
Bristol, 1820. 

Channing, W. E.— Complete Works. 6 vols., Bost., 1841-46. 
Channing, W. H.— Memoir of W. E. Channing. 3 vols., Bost., 1848. 
Clark, D. W\— Man all Immortal. Cine, 1864. 
CouTE, J. — Essays on Socinianism. Lond., 1850. 

Denison, H. M. — Review of Unitarian Views. Louisville, Ky., 1855. 
Dewey, O. — Discourses; Controv. Theol., etc. 6 vols., Bost., 1846- 
47-63. 

Dexter, H. M. — Verdict of Reason on the question of the Impenitent 

Dead. Bost., 1865. 
Disney, J. — Remarks on Tomline's Charge. Lond., 1812. Sermons. 

4 vols., Lond., 1793-1818. 
Eddy'. Richard. — Universalism in America: a History. 2 vols., Bost., 

1884-86. 

Ellis. G. E. — Half Century of the Unitarian Controversy. Bost., 1857. 

Farley, F. A. — Unitarianism Defined. Bost., 1860. New ed., 1873. 

Farrae, F. W. — Eternal Hope. Five Sermons Preached in West- 
minster Abbey. Lond. and N. Y., 1878. 

Frothingham, Octavius B. — Life of Theodore Parker. Bost., 1874. 
Boston Unitarianism, 1820-1850. A Study of the Life and Work 
of Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham. N. Y., 1890. 

Fueness^ W. H. — Jesus and his Biographers. Bost., 1838. History 
of Jesus. Bost., 1850. Veil Partly Lifted. Bost., 1864. 

Gage, W. L. — Trinitarian Sermons to a Unitarian Congregation. 
Bost, 1860. 

George. N. D. — Universalism Not of the Bible: being an Examina- 
tion of more than one hundred Texts of Scripture in Contro- 



APPENDIX. 



619 



versy between Evangelical Christians and Universalists. N. Y. 
1874. 

Hanson, John W— Aion-Aionios, the Greek word Translated Ever- 
lasting, Eternal, in the Holy Bible, shown to Denote Limited 
Duration. Bost., 1889. 

Hare, E.— Principal Doctrines of Christianity Defended against the 
Errors of Socinianism. N. Y., 1837. 

Hovey, a. — The State of the Impenitent Dead. Bost., 1859. 

Hudson, C. F.— Debt and Grace. Bost., 1857. Human Destiny: a 
Critique of Universalism. Bost., 1861. 

Job the Abbot. — Reasons for Abandoning Trinitarian Doctrines. 
Lond., 1841. 

Jones, T. — Immanuel; or. Scriptural Views of Jesus Christ. Lond., 
1856. 

Kenrick, T. — Exposition of the Historical Writings of the New 
Testament. 3 vols., Lond., 1809. 

Ker, W. — The Popular Views of Immortality, Everlasting Punish- 
ment, and the State of Separate Souls, brought to the Test of 
Scripture. Lond., 1865. 

KiDD, W. J. — Reflections on Unitarianism. Lond., 1835. 

KoHLMAN, A. — Complete Refutation of Unitarianism. Wash., 1821. 

Lake, C. W. — The Inspiration of Scripture and Eternal Punishment. 
Lond., 1864. 

Landis, R. W. — Immortality of the Soul, and Final Condition of the 
Wicked. N. Y., 1859. 

One of tbe best arguments in favor of Eternal Punishment. 

Lardner, N. — Complete Works. 17 vols., Lond., 1727-57. 

Letters on Nature and Duration of Future Punishment. Lond., 
1835. 

LiNDSEY, T. — Apology. Lond., 1774. Sequel. Lond., 1776. His- 
torical View of Unitarian Doctrine from Reformation. Lond., 
1783. Vindiciae Priestlianse. Lond., 1788. Memoirs and Progress 
of Unitarian Doctrine. Edited by T. Belsham. Lond., 1873. 

Martineau, J. — Rationale of Religious Inquiry. Lond., 1839. En- 
deavors after the Christian Life. 2 vols., Lond., 1843. Studies 
of Christianity. Lond., 1858. 

Mattison, H. — Immortality of the Soul. Phila., 1865. 

Mellis, J. — Lectures on Points of the Unitarian Controversy. Lond.^ 
1846. 

MiNTON, S. — Lectures on Unitarianism. Lond., 1847. 
Mitchell, E. — The Christian Universalist. New Haven, 1833. 
MoNSELL, C. A. — Sermons: Temporal Punishment of Sin. Lond., 1845. 
Moore, D.— The Age and the Gospel: to which is added a Discourse 

on Final Retribution. Lond., 1865. 
Morse, J.— True Reasons. Bost., 1805. Appeal to the Public. Bost., 

1814. 

MoRTLOCK, E. — Sermons on the Doctrine of the Trinity. Lond., 1844. 
Nemesis Sacra. Inquiries into Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution. 
Lond., 1856. 

Newton, Sir I.— Views on Points of Unitarian Doctrine. Repub- 
lished. Lond., 1856. 

Noel, B. W.— Christianity Compared with Unitarianism. Lond., 1851. 

Norton, A.— True and False Religion; in "Christian Disciple," 
1820-22. Genuineness of the Gospels. 3 vols., Bost., 1851-54. 
Tracts concerning Christianity. Camb., 1852. Internal Evi- 
dences. Bost, 1855. Statement of Reasons. Bost., 1856. 10th 
ed., 1877. 



620 



APPENDIX. 



Orr, John. — Unitarianism in the Present Time. Bost., 1863. 

Osgood, S. — Christian Biography. N. Y., 1851. The Coming Church 
and its Clergy. 1858. 

Palfrey, J. G. — Evidences of Christianity. Bost., 1843. 

Peabody, a. p. — Christian Doctrine. Bost., 1844. Christianity the 
Religion of Nature. Bost., 1863. 

Power. J. H. — Exposition of Universalism. N. Y., 1846. 

Price, R. — Dissertations on Provid. Christianity. Lond., 1772. Ser- 
mons on Christian Doctrine. Lond., 1787. 

Priestley, J. — Defenses of Unitarianism. 2 vols., Lond., 1787-89. 

Salmon, G. — The Eternity of Future Punishment. Lond., 1865. 

Sawyer, Thomas J. — Endless Punishment in the Very Words of its 
Advocates. Bost., 18S0. 

SiiEDD, William G. T. — The Doctrine of Endless Punishment. N. Y., 
1887. 

Sherlock. W. — An Essay on Future Punishment. Lend., 1865. 
Short Reasons for Belief in the Divinity of Christ. Lond., 1843. 
SoPER. E. — Doctrine of the Trinity Proved from Scripture. Lond., 
1853. 

Sprague, W. B. — Annals of the American Unitarian Pulpit. N. Y., 
1865. 

Stuart, M. — Exegetical Essays on Future Punishment. Lend., 1848. 

Thayer, T. B.— Theology of Universalism. Bost., 1862. 

Thompson, J. P.— Love and Penalty. N. Y., 1865. 

Thompson, S. — Scripture Refutation of Unitarianism. Lond., 1838. 

TowNSEND, L. T.— Lost Forever. Bost., 1874. 

Turner, W. — Lives of Eminent Unitarians. Lond., 1840-43. 

Unitarian, How I Became a. By a Clergyman of the Protestant 

Episcopal Church. Bost., 1852. 
Universalism against Itself. Cine, O. 
Universalismus, Der. Gott alles in Allen. Stuttgart, 1862. 
Ward, Humphry. Mrs. — Unitarians and the Future. Lond., 1894. 
Ware, H.— Complete Works. Bost., 1847. 

Ware, W. — Letters to Trinitarians and Calvinists. Bost., 1820. 

American Unitarian Biography. Bost., 1850. 
Whately, R. — Scriptural Revelation respecting Future State. 

Lond., 1858. 

Whitman, B. — Friendly Letters to a Universalist. Bost., 1850. 
Whittemore, T. — History of Universalism. New ed. Bost., 1860. 
Williamson, H. — Exposition and Defense of Universalism. N. Y., 
1840. 

Wilson, J. — Scripture Proofs of Unitarianism. Bost., 1847. 
Woods, L. — Letters to Unitarians, and Reply to Dr. Ware. Andover, 
1820. 

Worcester, N. — Review of Testimonies, etc., in "Bible News." Host., 

1810. Address to Trinitarian Clergy. Bost, 1814. 
Yates, James. — Vindication of Unitarianism. Lond., 4th ed., 1850. 

Unitarian Periodicals. 
Ariel, Haverhill, Mass. 
Chicago Calendar, Chicago. 
Christian Examiner, Bost., 1824-69. 
Christian Freeman, Lond., 1856-1901. 
Christian Life and Unitarian Herald, Lond., 1876-1901. 
Christian Register, Bost. 
iNQriRER, Lond., 1842-1901. 

Journal of American Unitarian Association, Bost. 
JSTew World, Bost., 1892-98. 



APPENDIX. 



621 



Pacific Unitarian, San Francisco. 

Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine, Bost., 1874-91. 
Unity, Chicago. 
Young Days, Lond. 

Universalist Periodicals. 

Myrtle, Bost. 
Onward, Bost. 

Universalist Herald, Canon, Ga. 
Universalist Leader, Bost. and Chicago. 
Universalis! Quarterly, Bost., 1844-62. 

For full bibliographical accounts of the controversy between the 
orthodox theologians of New England and the Unitarians, during 
the nineteenth century; and of the discussion on the Person of Christ 
provoked by the speculations of Horace Bushnell, consult Hagenbach, 
History of Doctrines, Smith's Ed. N. Y., 1862. 



41 



INDEX. 



^^^BBOT, Ezra, 576. 

Abrest, Peter, his exegetical labors, 345. 
Age, present, declared Rationalistic by 

Lecky, 23. 
America, relations between France 

and, 536. 

American Church, peculiarities of, 536. 
Influenced by skeptical denomina- 
tions, 571. Duty of, to guard against 
infidelity, 575. 

American civilization, undergoing a 
change, 576. 

Andrea, John Valentine ; poverty and 
early difficulties, 53. His satire on 
the Church, 53. Excitement pro- 
duced by it, 54. Service rendered by 
it, 54. Quotation from Andrea's 
ChristianopoUs, 61. Satire on the 
degenerate preaching of his time, 
71-73. 

Apostolical Succession, a doctrine of 

the High Church, 514. 
Archgeology, 589. 

Arndt, John ; his service to the Church ; 
work on True Chrisiianity ; motives 
leading him to write, 49. Reception 
of his work by the people, 50. Arndt's 
calm spirit, 50. He was charged with 
Mysticism, 50. Opposition to him, 51. 
Popularity of his book, 51. 

Arnold, Gottfried, the historian of Pie- 
tism, 18. His history of Churches and 
Heretics, 98. Charged with Separatism, 
98. He contended for the unification 
of Mysticism and Pietism, 98. 

Arnold', Matthew, 477, 478. 

Arnold, Thomas, his Sermons, 521. His 
opinions, 521-523. 

Atonement, Unitarian opinion of, 550, 
551. 

Auberlen on mission of Pietism, testi- 
mony of, 86-88. 

Augsburg Confession, 38. 

August, Karl. His care to secure the 
society of distinguished literary men 
around his court, 169, 170. 



BAHRDT, his deceit and blasphemy, 
139. His works, 140. His con- 
dition when at Giessen, 140. His 
rapid decline, 141. He engaged in 
Dumerous enterprises, 141. Became 
an inn-keeper at Halle^. 142. His 



wretched death, 142. He was the 
climax of French skepticism in Ger- 
many, 142. 

Basedow. An innovation in German 
education, 184. His pubhcatious in 
favor of a new system, 184. His vi- 
sionary plans, 185. Popular indorse- 
ment of his impracticable plans, 185. 
His final fall, 186, 187. 

Baumgarten, the connecting link be- 
tween Pietism and Rationalism, 111, 
He succeeded Wolff at Halle, 111 . His 
extensive acquirements. 111, 112. He 
favored the introduction of English 
Deism, 117. 

Baur, F. C, his works divided into two 
classes, 278. His views of the early 
Church, 278-280. 

Bavinck, H., 383. 

Becker, the extreme Rationalism con- 
tained in his juvenile publications, 
190-192. 

Bekker, Balthazar, a disciple of Des- 
cartes, 347. His World Bewitched, 347. 
His excommunication, and personal 
appearance, 347, 348. 

Bellows, against orthodoxy, 545, 546. 
Opposes original sin, 548-550. 

Belsham, his work on American Unita- 
rianism, 539, 540. 

Bengel, his purpose to lead the people 
to a better understanding of the 
Bible, 101. Kahnis' appreciation of 
Bengel, 101. 

Bilderdyk, at the head of the modern 
school of Dutch poetry, 359. 

Boehme, Jacob, shoemaker at Gorlitz ; 
his puxe. purposes, 46 ; his mysterious 
htOf^i ; method of composition, 47 ; 
description by himself of his seasons 
of ecstasy, 48 ; his Aurora, 48 ; last 
words, 49. 

Bois, M., 422. 

Bolingbroke, introducing the French 
spirit into England in the eighteenth 
century, 442. His principles, 442, 
443. 

Bowne, B. P., 321. 

Briggs, C. A., 575, 576. 

Broad Church, First, corresponds with 
Philosophical Rationalism, 519. Its 
tenets, 520, 529, 530. Second Broad 
Church is thoroughly Rationalistic, 
530. Points of difference from the 
First Broad Church, 531. 



624 



INDEX 



Brooks, Phillips, 575. 
Buckle, 586. 

Bunsen, his Biblical Researches re- 
viewed in Essays and Meviews, 485- 
487. 

Bushnell, H., 575. 



CALIXTL'S, George, as a theologian, 
40 ; professor at lieliustadt, 41 , 
travels, and literary style, 41 : im- 
pression made upon his "mind by pre- 
vailing controv'ersies, 41 ; his ardent 
desire to unite contlicting elements, 
41; his sorrow at the abuse of 
preaching, 41, 42; advice on preach- 
ing, 42; his Chief lUitls of ihf Chris- 
tian Religion, 43 ; accusations against 
him, 44 ; his fruitless labors, 44. 
Testimony on neglect of children, 
64, 65. 

Campe's influence upon the youth of 
Germany, 188. His works, laS. 

Capadose, an agent in the revival in the 
Dutch Church, a')9. 

Carlyie, Thomas, parent of Literary 
Rationalism in England, 473. De- 
rived his system from the German 
philosophers, 473. Opinions, 473- 
476. His influence upon the young, 
47"), 476. Vicious influence of his 
sentimeutSj 477. 

Channing, \V . Ellery, leader of Ameri- 
can Unitarianism, 54l. His works, 
541. .Mental transitions, 542. Repu- 
diation of orthodoxy, 542. His opin- 
ions, 543, 544. 

Chantepie de la Saussaye, one of the 
leaders of the Ethical-Irenical School 
in the Dutch Church, 375. Preaches 
in Rotterdam, 376. Assisted in form- 
ing society called Seriousness and 
Peace, 376. His work on modern 
materialism, 379. His opinions, 379, 
380. His view of the future of the 
Church, 380. 

Charities of Protestant Germany, 310. 

Cheyne, 505. 

Christ, opinions of German Rationalists 
on person of, 214-217. Life of Christ 
described by numerous replies to 
Strauss, 274, 275. The center of lat- 
ter-day theology, 588. 

Christianity, Theo. Parker's view of, 
567, 568. 

Christlieb, his address at Evangelical 
Alliance, 1873, 311, 312 ; his argument 
for miracles, 313, 314. 

Chubb, his three principles, 115, 
116. 

Church, aflBliations of Rationalism with 
the German, 26, 27. The Church has 
yet to vanquish thoroughly the at- 
tacks upon her faith, 35. Condition 
of the German Church when Ration- 
alism was at its height, 197. Recon- 
struction of the Church bv Frederic 
William III., 230, 231. 



Church and State, union of, presupposes 

great purity, 535. 
Church history, improved indirectly by 

the labors of the Rationalists, 581- 

583. 

Church of England, two parties in, 507. 

Classes in Germany, immorality o{ 
higher, 77, 78. 

Clergy, immorality of German, in 
seventeenth century, 73, 74, 76, note. 
The clergy were the agents of spiritual 
declension in Germany, 76. 

Cocceian Controversy, literature of, 
337. The excitement occasioned by 
the conflict, 343. 

Cocceians and Voetians, the leading 
parties in the Dutch Church, 340. 
Principles of each, 340. Cocceiani^ 
studied the Scriptures, but differed 
from the text, 341. 

CocceiuH, opponent of Scholasticism 
in the Dutch Church, 336. Studies 
and early writings, 336, 337. Pro- 
fessor in Leydeu University, 337, 
His opinion on the Sabbath, 337. 
Disciples, 337. Charges against Coc 
ceius, 337, 338. Agreement between 
him and Descartes, 338. 

Cocker, B. F., 574. 

Colani, one of principal theologians 
of French Critical School. His opini 
ions, 401, 402. At National Synod, 
422. 

Colenso, Bishop John William, resem- 
blance between him and Wolff, 107, 
108. His work on the Pentateuch 
and Book of Joshua, 499. His criti- 
cisms, 499-503. Excitement occa- 
sioned by his work, 503. Judicial 
proceedings against Colenso, 503-505, 
Testimony of a Mussulman against 
him, 505. Literature of the contro- 
versy occasioned by him. Appendix, 
605-fX)8. 

Coleridge, opinions of, 455-462. Hig 
struggles, 457. Definitions and dis- 
tinctions of Coleridge, 460, 461. His 
school, 402. 

Compensations of history, 453. 

Composition, method of literary, in 
Germany in seventeenth century, 67. 

Comte, 390. 

Conferences, French Protestant, their- 
formal action in favor of orthodoxy, 
419-421. 

Confessions, union of Lutheran and 
Reformed, 231. 

Controversy, Antinomian, Adiaphoris- 
tic, Synergistic, Osiandric, Crypto- 
Calvinistic, 39. Syncretistic contro- 
versy, 40. 

Cook, Joseph, 575. 

Coquerel, A., jr., editor of the Lieii, 
406. Refusal of the Presbyterial Coun- 
cil to re-appoint him as suffragan in a 
Protestant pulpit in Paris, 408. His 
opinions, 407. 408. His christology, 
408, 409. 



INDEX. 



625 



Courts, licentiousness of German, dur- 
ing the Thirty Years' War, 78, 79. 
Extravagance on matrimonial and 
baptismal occasions, 79, 80. 

Criticism, Higher, 315, 383, 384, 505, 506, 
575, 576, 585, 586. 



DA COSTA, an agent in the revival 
in the Dutch C-hurch, 359. 
Darwin, 478, 586. 

De Cock, leader of the secession from 
the Dutch Church, 362. Results of 
his expulsion by ecclesiastical author- 
ity, 363. 

Deism, English, defined by Lechler, 113. 
The principle on which it started, 113. 
Its superiority to the Deism of France, 

113. Its origin due to prominence 
given to nature by Lord Bacon, 114. 
German opposition to English Deism, 

114. Rapid progress of Deism in 
Germany, 117. Foreign infidelity 
hastened by the quibbles of orthodox 
theologians, 125. English Deism in- 
fluencing the Dutch Church, 350-352. 
Did not possess advantages equal to 
those of German Rationalism, 440. 

Deism, French, cooperating vpith En- 
glish Deism, toward the overthrow of 
orthodoxy In Germany, 122. 

Deists, English, translations of their 
works into the German languaere, 
117. Translations into Dutch, 351, 
352. 

Delitzsch, Franz, 315, 316. 

De Pressense prophesies good results 
from Renan's Lije of Jesus, 406. 
Leader of evangelical theologians in 
the French Church, 411. Edits the 
Bcviie Chr'etlcnne, 411. His opin- 
ions, 412-415. Opposes the union 
of Church and State, 415. His later 
career, 415, 416. 

Descartes, apostle of French Rational- 
ism, 338, 339, 389. 

De Wette, twofold character of his 
opinions, 246, 247. His opinion of 
John, the Evangelist, 247. View of 
the Scriptures, 248. His theological 
novel, 248. 

Dinter, a skeptical writer for children, 
189 190 

Doedes of Utrecht, 381. 

Dogmatism, one of the elements of 
the degeneracy of the Dutch Church, 
336. 

Dorner, his complex style, 290. His 
work on the Person of Christ, 290- 
292. Conception of Christianity, 290. 
On the resurrection, 314. History of 
Christian Doctrine^ 314, 315. 

Doubt, religious, and innovation, must 
be estimated by four considerations, 
32 

Draper, J. W., 574, 586. 

Driver, S. R., 505. 

Du Bois-Raymond, 586, 587. 



ED E L M A N N , Kahnis' testimony 
concerning him, 138, 139. 
Edersheim, 506. 

Education in Germany, defects of, 184. 
Edwards, Jonathan, successor of Stod- 
dard, at Northampton, 538. 
Emerson, 559, 560. 

Emlyn, his Scripture account of Jesus 
Christ, 539. 

Empirical-Modern School in the Dutch 
Church, 371. It has few points of 
sympathy with evangelical Christian- 
ity, 374. Its principles, 374, 375. 

English Church in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, low state of, 449-452. Condi- 
tion of English Church at the Peace of 
1815, 454. 

English literature in the eighteenth 
century, character of, 440, 441. Bril- 
liant writers, 441. English literature 
influenced by the French spirit, 
441. 

Epicureanism prevalent in Germany . 

before the Thirty Years' War, 78. 
Ernesti, the classic scholar of his day, 

125, 127. 

Essays and Reviews, theology of, 482-495. 
Opinions of evangelical German theo- 
logians on the Essays and Reviews, 
495, 496. Publications called forth 
by that work, 497, Appendix, 609. 
Judicial proceedings against the 
authors, 497, 498. Literature arising 
from the publication of the Essays 
and Reviews, Appendix, 609. 

Ethical-Irenical School in the Dutch 
Church, 375. Its leaders, 375. 

Ethics in the Dutch Church, corruption 
of, 335. 

Evangelical Church Gazette, 101, 102. 

Evangelical Dissenting Church of 
Switzerland, rise of, 428. 

Evangelical French School, 411. Led 
by E. de Pressens6, 411. Defended 
by Guizot, 416. Fruits of the labors 
of the evangelical French theologians, 
419. Their success evident in the 
formal action Of the Protestant Con- 
ferences, 419-421. 

Evangelizing agencies in France, 423. 

Evolution, 478-480. 

Ewald. his History of Israel, 316, 317. 



-glALK, at Weimar, 310. 
Farrar, F. W., 533. 

Farrar, his description of the Wolffian 
philosophy, 110, 111. 

Feuerbach, his radical skepticism, 282. 

Fichte, relation to Kant, 163. His sys- 
tem, 163. His Addresses to the German 
People, and Influence of that work, 
222, 223. 

Fiske, John, 574. 

Fliedner, established a Deaconess In- 
stitute, 310. 
Formula Concordise, 39, 40. 



626 



INDEX. 



France, adoption of English Deism by, 
117. Irreligion m France during the 
reign of Louis XIV., 117, 118. 

Fraucke, Augustus Hermann, testi- 
mony on neglect of Scriptural stud- 
ies, 69. His temperament, 93. Purity 
of his purpose, 94. His account of 
his conversion, 94. His pulpit min- 
istrations in Halle, 95. His hdro- 
ductioH to the Old Te.stametd, Herme- 
neutkal Lectures and Method of Theo- 
liHjical Stiidfj, 95. He founded the 
Orphan House at Halle, 95. The 
gradual establishment of that insti- 
tution, 95, 9<). Condition of the Or- 
phan llouse after Francke's death, 
96, note. Theological instruction by 
Francke and his coadjutors, 96. Pro- 
lific power of the Orphan House, 97, 
98. 

Francken, his Kernel of Divinitrj^ 346, 
Frederic the Great, withdrew the royal 
patronage from Halle, 1(X), lol. He 
was captivated by Voltaire, 12U. His 
systematic attempt to destroy ortho- 
doxy in his kingdom, 122. He made 
no secret of his skepticism, 123. Final 
regret for his religious cour:^e, on see- 
ing the evil effects of inrKlelity upon 
his people, 123, 124. 
Free Congregations, rise and influence 
of, 284. 

Freeman, Rev. James, Pastor of King's 
Chapel, Boston, 539. Installation as 
the first Unitarian minister in Amer- 
ica, 539. 

French Church, Protestant, 387. Skep- 
: tical formalism of French Protestant- 
ism in the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, 387, 388. Opposition 
to the French Protestant Church, 411. 
Later French Protestantism, 423, 424. 

French Critical School of Theology, 391, 
392. Opinions, 393, 394. 

French Literature in Europe, preva- 
lence of, 391. 

French Skeptics, influence of, upon the 
Church of Holland, 352. 

French Theology, animation of, 386. 

Frothingham, O. B., his juvenile work, 
572, 573. Lecture on Liberal Chris- 
tianity, 573. 

Future "Punishment, opposition of Uni- 
tarians to, 552, 553. 



GAUSSEN, leader of the Evangel- 
ical Dissenting Church of Swit- 
zerland, 428, 429. 
Geneva, improvement af religious 

spirit in, 430, 431. 
Gerhard, John, personal qualities, and 
rapid attainments, 51. Quotation 
from his exegetical treatise, 52. 
German Theology, affiliated to Phi- 
losophy, 155. 
Germany, the country where Rational- 
ism, has exerted its chief influence, 5. 



Condition of Protestant Germany at 
the commencement of the nineteenth 
century, 220-222. Later theological 
movements in Germany, 311-331. 

Gibbon, caprices of, 447. Work on the 
Roman Empire, 447, 448. Destitu- 
tion of political character, 448. 

God, opinion of German Rationalists 
concerning, 199, 200. Idea of God 
essential to success of civil govern- 
mei\t, 287. Unitarian opinion of 
God, 547, 548. 

Godet, 439. 

Goethe at Weimar, 179. His attach- 
ment to Roman Catholicism, 183. In- 
fluence of his writings on theology, 
183. 

Goodwin, C. W., on the Mosaic Cos- 
mogony, In Easmjs and Reviews. His 
opinions, 491, 492. 

Gossner, 310. 

Graf's hypothesis, 315. 

Grav, Asa, 574. 

Green, W. H.,576. 

Griosbach ; he aimed to establish a sys- 
tem of natural religion, 137, 138. 

Groen Van Prinsterer, his influence in 
favor of home missions, 360. Edited 
The Netherlander, 361. Defended the 
Secessionists from the Dutch Church, 
363, 

Groningen School. Its origin, organ, 
and principal tenets, 364, 365. Dis- 
tinguished for its ethical system, 366. 
No place for the Trinity in the Gron- 
ingen Theology, 366. Service of the 
Groningens, 367. Their failure to 
reach their object, 367. Later repre- 
sentatives, 382. 

Grotius, forerunner of Ernesti, 127, 
334, 341, 

Grotz, his opinions, 403. 

Guericke, called attention to the oper- 
ations of the " Friends of Light," 
284. 

Guizot. his deep interest in later French 
Theology, 416. His important work 
on the Christian Religion, 416-419. 

Guyot, A., 574. 



-gj-AECKEL, 324. 

Half- Way Covenant, 538. 

Halle, University of ; occasion of its 
establishment, 93. Its faculty, and 
the work before it, 93. The new gen- 
eration of professors in Halle, 99, 
100. Edict of Frederic William I., 
that all theologians must study in 
that University, 100. 

Hamann, inability of, and his coad- 
jutors to resist Rationalism in Ger- 
many, 196. 

Hare, Julius Charles, disciple of Cole- 
ridge, 462. His life full of incident, 
463. View of Sacrifice, 463. Other 
opinions, 464, 465. 



INDEX. 



627 



Earless, an opponent of Strauss, 271. 

Barman, H. M., 576. 

Harms, Glaus, opposition of, to union 
of German Churches, 231. His 95 
Theses, 232-235. The excitement oc 
casioned by the publication of that 
work, 235, 236. 

Harms, Louis, 310. 

Harnack, Adolf, 328-331 ; his Essence of 

akristianity, 330, 331. 
Hartmann, E. von, 323, 324. 
Hartwig, O., 324. 

Hegel, his relation to philosophy, 164. 
His philosophy reducible to a system 
of nature, 164 His system, 165. Ful- 
filment of his theory of antagonisms, 
257. The three branches of his 
School, 257, 258. 

Hengstenberg, his Evangelical Church 
Gazette established to oppose the 
prevalent Rationalism, 370, 271. He 
takes highest rank in the Evangelical 
School as a controversialist and ex- 
positor of the Old Testament, 305 Op- 
position to Pantheism, 306. Con- 
tributors to his journal, 306. His 
opinion of the Essays and Reviews, 
496. 

Herbert, Lord, of Cherbury; his reflec- 
tions on the publication of his Trac- 
tatus de Veritate, 114. His view of 
education, 114. 

Herder, adaptation to his times, 171. 
His creed, 172. His interest in the 
poetic features of the Bible, 172, 173. 
The kind of love which he cherished 
toward the Bible, 174. View of the 
person of Christ, 174. Opinion of 
the Gospels, 175. Herder's great serv- 
ice to the Church, 1 76. His view of 
the pastorate, 176. Character of his 
preaching, 177, 178. Opposition to 
the Kantian Philosophy, 178. 

High Church in England, rise of, 511. 
Its Conference at Hadley, 512. Doc- 
trines of the High Church, 512-515. 
General service of the High Church, 
515, 516. 

Hilgenfeld, Adolf, 319. 

Hilprecht, 590. 

Hobbes ; his estimate of religion, 114, 
115. His works translated into Dutdi, 
351. 

Hodge, C, 575. 
Hoekstra, 382. 

Hofstede de Groot, in conjunction with 
Pareau, published a work on dog- 
matic theologv, 365. Principles taught 
therein, 365, 366. 

Holland, former importance of, 332, 
333. Rise of Rationalism in Holland, 
333. Theological publications in Hol- 
land, 334. Popular acquaintance 
with theology in Holland, 346. 

Church of, made slow progress in 

the eighteenth century, 344. Influ- 
enced by English Deism, 350. Affected 
by French Skepticism, 352. Introduc- 



tion of new hymn-book into the 
Dutch Churches, 357, 358. Dutch 
Church, present conditions, 385. 

Holy Ghost, Unitarian opinion of, 548. 

Horailetic literature of the Dutch 
Church, 335. 

Huguenots of France were received 
into Holland, and exerted a beneficial 
influence on the Dutch Church, 343. 

Humanists, Aristotelian, of seventeenth 
century, 6. 

Hume, partook of the prevalent French 
spirit, 444. His errors, 444. Essay 
on Miracles, 445, 446. History of Eng- 
land, 446, 447. 

Huxley, 588. 

Hymns, destruction of German, 193. 
Churches rivaled each other in adapt- 
ing their hymn-books to Rationalistic 
opinions, 194. 

INDIFFERENCE, religious, produced 
in Holland by the French spirit, 
358, 354. 

Infidelity presents a systematic and 
harmonious history, 2. Infidelity 
systematically opposed to civil order 
and authority, 287. 

Inner Mission' of German Protestant- 
ism, 310. 

Inspiration, opinion of German Ration- 
alists on_, 200, 202. American Uni- 
tarian opinion on, 546, 547. 

Instruction in Germany, improved 
character of religious, 307, 308. 



JACOBI, the opponent of the Kantian 
philosophy, 162, 163. Service to 
evangelical religion, 169. 
Janet, Paul, 423, 424. 
Journals in Germany, theological, 306, 
307, and note. Rationalistic Journals, 
Appendix, 599, 600. Rationalistic 
Journals in France, Appendix, 603. 
Jowett, his commentaries, 481, His 
view of the Atonement, 482. Writes 
in Essays and Reviews on the interpre- 
tation of Scripture, 493. His opin- 
ions, 494, 495. 



KANT, his superiority to other 
thinkers of his time, 156, His ac- 
count of his pious mother, 156. His 
system published by a student. Hip- 
pel, 157, His Critiqiie of Pure Reason, 
157. That work popularized by 
Schulze, 158. Opponents of the Kan- 
tian system, 158. Kant's statement 
concerning the limits of reason, 159. 
General character of Kant's criticism, 
159, 161. Kant's silence on the posi- 
tive truths of Christianity, 161. Moral 
effect of the Kantian system, 162. 
Thinkers succeeding Kant, 165. Their 
service^ 166. 



628 



INDEX. 



Keil, 320. 

Keim, Theodore, 319. 

King's Chapel, Boston, became Unita- 
rian, 538, 539. 

Kingsley, Charles, on the English 
mind, influence of, 468. His numer- 
ous works, 409. His opinions, 469- 
471. Controversy with Father New- 
man, 517. 

Kleman, work on connection between 

grace and duty, 350. 
Klopstock innocently commenced the 

alteration of the German hymns, 

194. 

Kuenen, 3«J-384. 
Kuvper, 383. 



J^ADD, G. T., 570. 

i.unge, his view of the Church, 296, 
297. 

Langhaus, E., 439. 

Larroque, member of the French Crit- 
ical School, 400. 

Lechler, his deflnitiou of English De 
ism, 113. 

Leibnitz, the author of the Wolffian 

philosophy, 103. His Theodicy, 103. 

Philosophy of Leibnitz confined to 

the learned, 104. 
Leo the Tenth, skepticism of, 113. 
Lessing, his object in publishing the 

Wolfenbuttd Fragme/it.s, 152. His 

opinions in partial harmony, at least, 

with that work, 153. He found fault 

with his age, 155. 
Lesson taught by condition of England 

in the eighteenth century, 440. 
LeVasser, his account of "French irre- 

ligion during the reign of Louis XIV., 

117. 

Lej-den School of Theologians, 367. Its 
origin, 308. 

Liberal Catholic School of France. Its 
founders, 409. Great influence and 
nigh position of its members, 410. 

Liberal Protestant Union, the organiza- 
tion of French Rationalists, 393. 

Liberation, beneficial effects of Ger- 
man, 223, 224. 

Literary Rationalism in England, owes 
its origin to Carlyle, 473. 

Literature, theological, defective char- 
acter of, in former part of seventeenth 
century, 05, 60. 

Locke, his works translated into Dutch, 
351. 

Loman, A. S., 384. 
Lotze, 322, 323. 

Low Church, In England, 508. Its seat 
at Cambridge, 508. Conducted by 
vigorous minds, 508. Always on the 
side of popular reform, 509. Mission- 
ary labors, 509, 510. Its work at 
home, 510. Present status, 510, 
511. 

Luthardt, 318, 819. 



jyj'C ALL Missions, 423. 

Mandeville, his style complimented by 
Macaulay, 110. 

Maurice, disciple of Coleridge, 465. 
Ideal view of creation, 405, 460. Holds 
that Christ is the archetype of every 
human being, 400. His system, 407. 
His permission to ofiBciate in the 
Established Church, 468. 

Mediation-Theologians of Germany,288. 

Melanchthon, his Apology of the Confes- 
sion, 38. 

Mendenhall, J. W., 576, 585. 

Milton, on pride of the Church, and 
ecclesiastical authority, 535, 536. 

Miracles, the Rationalists deny the 
possibility of, 24. Opinion of Ger- 
man Rationalists concerning mira- 
cles, 207, 211. Miracles, Christlieb 
on, 313, 314. Hume on, 445, 446. 

Moderns, in Holland, 382, 383. 

Montague, house of Lady Mary Wort- 
ley, the center of a large literary 
group, 443. 

Mosheim, his opposition to the intro- 
duction of English Deism, 117. 

Midler and Scriver as illustrations of 
improved literary style, before the 
rise of Pietism, 83, 84. 

M idler. Max, 506. 

Music in the German Churches made to 
conform to Rationalism, 195. Decline 
of congregational singing, 195. 



^^AST, W., 570, 

Neander, first of Mediation Theolo- 
gians. His youth, and early publi- 
cations, 249. Theological views, 249, 
250. The chief characteristic of his 
theology, 250. Various writings, 251. 
Conception of Church history, 251, 
252. Valuable service to evangelical 
theology, 252. Relation to his times, 
252. Personal appearance, 253, 254. 
Life of Chri&t, in reply to Strauss, 272, 
273, 584. 

Newman, F. W., his life resembles 
Blanco White's, 517. His Phases of 
Faith, 518. Became a missionary, 
518. His opinions, 518, 519. 

Nicolai, his Universal German Library^ 
147. Object of that journal to op- 
pose all orthodox publications, 147. 
Its great Influence, 147, 148. Berlin 
affected by it, 148. 

Norton, Andrews, professor in Harvard 
University, 540. 



OPZOOMER, professor at Utrecht, 
371, 382. His manual of logic, 
371. 

Orelli, C. von, 439. 

Orthodoxv, inactivity of, in the Church 
of Holland, 356. 



INDEX. 



629 



PARKER, Theodore, as a reformer, 
564. Personal history, 565. His 
radicalism, 566. His theological 
opinions, 566-571. 
Pasteur, 424. 

Pattison, M., writes in Essays and He- 
views on Tendencies of Religious 
Thought in England, 1688-1750, 492. 

Paul, Jean, called attention to neces- 
sity of parental training of children, 
187. 

Paulus, attempt of, to prove Luther a 

Rationalist, 31. 
Pecaut, holds that Deism should be 

substituted for the doctrines of 

Protestantism, 402. His opinions, 

402, 403. 

Periodical skeptical press of England, 
477. 

Pestalozzi's labors for the amelioration 
of orphans, 188. His ideal of a 
school, 188. 

Pfleiderer, O., 314, 325, 326. 

Philosophers do not communicate di- 
rectly with the people, 471, 472. 

Philosophy and science, 321-324, 478- 
480. 

Philosophy of the period anterior to 
rise of Pietism, 82, 83. Service of 
speculative philosophy in aid of reli- 
gion, 167. 

Pierson, Allard, 384. 

Pierson, his relation to Opzoomer, 371. 
His opinions contained in two works, 
371, 372. His exposition of the " New 
Theology," 372. He holds that rea- 
son must determine what is revela- 
tion, 373. Specimen of Pierson's 
style, 374. 

Pietism, agencies leading to rise of, 55. 
Objection brought against Pietism, 
85. What Pietism proposed to do, 
85. It was confounded with Mysti- 
cism, 88. Pietism commenced upon 
the principle that the Church was 
corrupt, 88. The means proposed 
by Pietism to improve the Church, 
88. 89. Secret of the fall of Pietism, 
102. Mistake of Lutheranism in fail- 
ing to adopt it in the Church, 102.. 
Relation of Pietism to the German 
Protestant Church, 102. 

Pietists, charged with literary barren- 
ness, 101. 

Positivism, the work of Compte alone, 
390. 

Powell, Baden, on the study of evi- 
dences of Christianity, in Ussays 
and Reviews, 487. His opinions, 487- 
489. 

Preaching, defective, in Germany In 
seventeenth century, 69, 70. 

Privy Council of England, 498, note. 

Professors and students, intimacy be- 
tween German, 308, 309. 

Prophecy, opinion of German Rational- 
ists concerning, 211-214. 

Protestant Association, the, 324, 325. 



Protestant Friends, 283 
Protestantism, concessions of, to the 

civil magistrate, 37, 
Pulpit of Holland, low state of preach* 

ing in the, 334. 



RATIONALISM, danger of failing 
to appreciate magnitude of, 1. Ne- 
cessity of immediate defence against 
infidelity, 2. RationaUsm not an un- 
mixed evil in its results, 4. The term 
Rationalism not of recent origin, 6. 
Rationalists in England in 1646, 6. 
Rationalism defined by Ruckert, 7, 
note ; by Wegscheider in Institution es 
Bogmaticce, 8-11 ; by Staudlin, 11, 12 ; 
by Professor Hahn, 12, 13 ; by Hugh 
James Rose, 13-16-, by A. McCaul, 
16-19 ; by M. Saintes, 19-21 ; by Lecky, 
22, 23. Rationalists acknowledge jus- 
tice of the definitions of their oppo- 
nents, 24. Several kinds of Rational- 
ists, 24-26. Peculiar advantages of 
Rationalism over other forms of 
Skepticism, 26. Rationalists do not 
discard the Bible, but claim to give a 
proper interpretation, 27. Shrewd- 
ness of Rationalism in its initial 
steps, 30. Motives of the early Ra- 
tionalists, 31, Rationalism measured 
by four things, 32-35. Rationalism 
acknowledges no hallowed ground, 
33. Spirit of Rationalism, bitter, 34. 
Completeness of destructive work of 
Rationalism, 35. The terra Rational- 
ism came into use in early part of 
nineteenth century, 239. Rationalism, 
injured by its excessive demands, 255, 
256. Rationalism assumed a revolu- 
tionary and atheistic form after the 
publication of Strauss' Life of Jesus, 
281. Rise of Rationalism in Holland, 
333. Undercurrent of Rationalism in 
Dutch Church, extending back to 
Synod of Dort, 346. Rationalism in 
French Protestant Church, 391-409; 
in Switzerland, 432-439 ; in England, 
455. Three forms of Rationalism in 
England, 455. Indirect service of 
Rationalism, 579-586. Philosophical 
Rationalism in England commenced 
with Coleridge, 455. Literature of 
Rationalism, 591-621, Appendix. 
Rationalists among the English Jews, 
Roman Catholics, Quakers, and Uni- 
tarians, 533. 
Rationalists, German, had no common 
system, 198. Reason therefor, 198. 
The principal parts of their system, 
200-218. Results of their opinions, 
218 219. 

Recordite party in the Low Church, 
511. 

Reformation endangered by contro- 
versies, 45. 

Reformed Church, purity and progress 
of, in seventeenth century, 76. 



630 



INDEX. 



Reformers, difference between, and 
Rationalists, 31, 32. Faults of the 
immediate successors of the Reform- 
ers, 37. Disputes of the Reformers, 
38. 

Regeneration, Unitarian opinion of, 
551, 552. 

Reinhard avowed himself in favor of 
subordination of reason to faith, 239. 

Religion, opinion of German Rational- 
ists on, 199. 

Renan, his greatest celebrity due to his 
Life of Jesus, 403. II is opinions, 403, 

404. Reception of his Life of Jesus, 

405. Results of that publication de- 
clared by De Pressensc to be bene- 
ficial, 406. Literature arising from 
Renan's Life of Jes^is, 601-603, Ap- 
])en(lir. 

" Reunion of Christian Friends in Hol- 
land," result of revival in the Dutch 
Church, 301. Monthly Journal of the 
organization, 361. 

Reuss, Edward, 319, 320. 

Rcville, his exposition of the so-called 
Liberal Theology, 3l>4-3%. 

Revival in the Dutch Church, 358. 

lierue de Tli'ohxfh, organ of French 
Critical School, 396. Edited by Sche- 
rer, 396. 

Ritschl, A., 326-328. 

Robertson, F. W., 531-5^3. 

Roell, Professor, declared the necessity 
of reason for a proper interpretation 
of the Scriptures, 348, 349. 

Ruhr, his Briefe vber dcu liationalismus, 
34. Principles contained therein, 238, 
239 

Rogers, 589. 

Romanes, 480. 

Rothe, ethical system, 300. His work 
on Dogmatic Theology, 300. Princi- 
ples taught therein, 301-303. 

Rougemont, his opinions, 400, 401. 

Rousseau, his description of French 
skepticism during the reign of Louis 
XV., 118. The proposition which 
he sought to establish, 121. The key 
to his creed, 122. His popularity in 
Germany, 186. 

Ruppf Pas'tor, attacked the Athanasian 
symbol, 284. 



gABBATH, neglect of, in Germany, 

Savage, M. J., 559. 

Sayce, A. H., 505, 506, 590. 

Schaff, description of Xeander's ap- 
pearance, 253, 254. Declares the in- 
direct service of Rationalism, 580, 
582, 583. 

Schelling, his natural philosophy, 164. 
His opposite and parallel sciences, 

Schenkel, elevation by Baden govern- 
ment, 303. His skeptical book, Pic- 
ture of the Character of Jesus, 303. 



Principles taught therein, 304. Cleri- 
cal protest against his continuance 
in authority, 305. 

Scherer, member of the French Critical 
School. Departure from orthodoxy, 
396. His view of Protestantism, 397. 
Opinion of the New Testament, 397, 
398. The Bible, according to his exe- 
gesis, 398, 399. His low estimate of 
Christ's miracles, 399, 400. 

Schiller at Weimar, 178, 179. His prayer 
on Sabbath morning, 179, 180. An 
admirer of Paganism, 181. Embod- 
ies the Kantian philosophy in verse, 
182. 

Schleiermacher, early training of, 224. 
Residence in Berlin as chaplain, 224. 
His philosophy derived from Jacobi, 
224. His Discourses, 225, 226. Pur- 
pose of that work, 225, 226. Schleier- 
macher's conception of religion, 226, 
227. His Monologues, 228, 229. His 
System of Doctrines, 241. Principles 
taught therein, 241-243. The great 
service of that work, 243, 244. In- 
formation concerning Schleiermach- 
er, 243, 7wte. His defective view of 
the Trinitv, 244. General character 
of his theology, 245, 246. His School, 
256, 257. 

Schliemann, 589. 

Scholasticism, one of the elements of 
the degeneracy of the Dutch Church, 
336. 

Scholten, founder of the Leyden School, 
.368. His distinction between the prin- 
ciples and dogmas of a Church, 368. 
His view of historical criticism, 369. 
Makes human nature the witness of 
truth of revelation, 369. Defective 
view of sin, and denial of miracles, 
370. Of the Modern School, 382. 

Schott contended for the union of Rea- 
son and Revelation, 241. 

Schrader, 315, 320. 

Schwarz, 320. 

Schurmann, Anna Maria, took part in 
the Cocceian controversy, 341. 

Science, necessity of a proper view of, 
586, 587. No antagonism between, 
and Revelation, 586-589. 

Scriptures, study of, neglected in Ger- 
many in seventeenth century, 68. 
Opinion of German Rationalists con- 
cerning credibility of Scriptures, 203- 
206. The Rationalists conscious of 
importance of the Scriptures, 481. 

Secession from the Church of Holland, 
362. Its failure, 363. 

Semler, his early training, 128. Diffi- 
culty concerning want of understand- 
ing of the number of the biblical 
books, 129. His celebrated accommo- 
dation-theory, 130. His distinction 
between the local and temporary 
contents of the Scriptures, 130, 131. 
His moderate affiliation with the 
English Deists, 131. His repudiation 



IIS'DEX. 



631 



of the French Skeptical School, 131. 
His opinion concerning the world's 
independence of the Bible, 133. He 
gained his greatest triumph against 
the history and doctrinal authority 
of the Church, 133. The beauty and 
purity of his private hfe, 133, 134. 
His domestic life, 134. Death of his 
daughter, 135, 136. Semler's mental 
defects, 136. His imitators, 137. Fatal 
results of Semler's doctrines, 146, 147. 
Seriousness and Peace, society called, 
376. 

Shaftesbury, Lord, cultivated the ac- 
quaintance of the leaders of skepti- 
cism in France and England, 115. 
His violent hostility to Christianity, 
115. His Characteristics, 115. 

Sin, Unitarian opinion of, 548-550. 

Skepticism, the result of coldness, for- 
malism, and controversy in the 
Church, 4. Development "of skepti- 
cism south and west of Germany, 
113, 113. Skepticism received the 
support of the educated and refined 
German circles during latter part of 
the eighteenth century, 148. Histor- 
ical record of skepticism, 563. Nega- 
tion its goal, 587. Methods of meet- 
ing, 589. 

Smith, John Pye, his statement con- 
cerning the inferior character of re- 
phes to the English Deists, 117. 

Smith, W. Robertson, 505. 

Smyth, N., 575. 

Speculative Kationahsm in Zurich, 
Periodicals favoring, 434. Opinions 
of the Speculative Rationalists con- 
cerning the Scriptures and Christ, 
435-437 ; immortality, 437, 438 ; sin, 
438 ; faith, 438, 439. 

Spencer, Herbert, 478, 479, 

Spener, Philip Jacob, his testimony on 
neglect of children, 63, 64. • His Uni- 
versity life, and pastoral labors, 89, 
90. His labors in behalf of children, 
90. The Collegia Bctntls, 90, 91. Spe- 
• ner's Pia Besideria, 91. His childlike 
nature, 91, 98. His literary activity, 
93. Bitterness of his enemies after 
his death, 93, 93. 

Spinoza, 103, 381, 

Stanley, Dean of Westminster, his 
works, 533. Rationalistic conces- 
sions in his Jewish Chtirch, 534. His 
article in the Edinburgh Beview, 534, 
535 

Steck', R., 439. 

Stoddard, Venerable, did not believe in 
excluding unregenerate persons from 
the Lord's Supper, 537. 

Strauss, his Life of Jesus the outgrowth 
of long-standing doubt, 39. Strauss 
a Left-Hegelian, 358. Popular recep- 
tion of his Life of Jesus, 359. Ex- 
traordinary character of the contents 
of that work, 359, 360. Strauss had 
an erroneous view of history, 360. 



He contended that Christ was a 
mythical personage, 361-363. Doc- 
trines contained in the Life of Jesus, 
363-370. Replies to that work, 373, 
374. His later work. Life of Jesus 
Fojjularly Treated, designed for the 
laity, 375. Contents of that work, 
376, 377. Strauss' /System of Doctrine, 
an embodiment of Hegelian phi- 
losophy, 381. His Old Faith and the 
New, 330, 331. Rejection from pro- 
fessorship m Zurich, 433, 433, 
Success dependent on strenuous effort, 
577, 578. 

Supernaturalism. This term came into 
frequent use in early part of nine- 
teenth century, 339. 

Synod of Dort, 334. 

Synod of France, National, of 1873, 433. 

Switzerland, decline in political influ- 
ence, 435. Low state of Swiss Prot- 
estant Church when Voltau-e was at 
Ferney, 435, 436. Later conditions 
of, 439. 



TEMPLE, author of Education of the 
World, in Essays and Reviews, 483. 
His opinions, 483-485. 
Tendency, history of a mischievous, 

best means of resistance, 3. 
Theologians in early part of seven- 
teenth century, 67. 
Theological taste, mcrease of, owing to 
the propagation of Semler's destruc- 
tive criticism, 144, 
Theological training in Geneva, neglect 
of, 436. M. Best's testimony, 436, 
437. Later elevated state of instruc- 
tion, 431, 433. 
Theology, Dutch, literalism of, 34d. 
Theology, union between, and philoso- 
phy, 35, 36. The influence of theol- 
ogy as a science, in Germany, 146. 
Thirty Years' War ; principles involved 
and parties participating, 56. Des- 
peration and devastation ol Thirty 
Years' War, 57. Neglect of pastoral 
work, 57. Great losses in population 
and wealth, 58. Religious efl'ect, 60. 
Neglect of youth, 63. Necessity of a 
popular reawakening at the close of 
Thirty Years' War, 80, 81. 
Tholuck, reply to De Wette's novel, 
348. Reply to Strauss' Life of Jesus, 
371. View of inspiration, 393. Tho- 
luck cannot be estimated by merely 
stating his deflnitions, 893, 393. He 
cannot be classified, 393. His various 
writings, 393. Quotation from his 
work on Sin and Redemption, 393-395. 
Thomasius, an eminent jurist, 98. He 
gave his infiuence to Pietism, 99. He 
defended the Pietists from the stand- 
point of statesmanship, 99. Culti- 
vated the German spirit, and deliv- 
ered lectures in the German language, 
99, 



632 



INDEX. 



Tilly, his cruelty in warfare, 58, 59. 

llndal, his ChrUtianity as Old as the 
Worlds replies to, 116. 

Tittmauu opposed Rationalism, 239, 240. 

Toland, replies to his C/iristiayiity not 
Mysterious, 1 16. 

Tollner ; his attempt to harmonize the 
old German theology with the Wolff- 
ian philosophy, 112. His point of 
difference from Wolff, 112. His two- 
fold conception of Scripture, 112. 
His opinion of inspiration, 201, 202. 

Tractarianism, 511-516. 

Tracts for the Times, 510. 

Tubingen School, 280. 

Tzschirner contended for the harmo- 
nization of rea.son and revelation, 240. 
His mfluence, 240. 



UHLICH, Pastor, founder of 
Friends of Light, 283. 
UUmann, reply to Strauss, 273. His 
A'ssence of ChristiariKy, 289. Opin- 
ions, 289. 

Union of German Churches, 231, 232. 
Task imposed upon the new State 
Church, 237. 

Unitarian controversy between Chan- 
ning and Worcester, 541. 

Unitarianism, opposed to orthodoxy, 
544 , 545. Later developments, 559, 
560. Literature of Unitarianism, 617- 
620, Appendix. Unitarian Journals, 
620, 621, Appendix. 

Unitarians, their indefinite creed, 544. 
Their general opinions, 546-552. Na- 
tional convention in New York, 558, 
559. 

United States, Church of, 534. Sepa- 
ration of Church and State by the 
founders of the republic, 534. 

Universalists in America, 560. Creed 
of the Universalists, 561, 562. Table 
showing their present condition, 562, 
563, note. Literature of Universal- 
ism, 617-620, Appendix. Unlversalist 
Journals, 621, Appendix. 

Universities, immorality in German, in 
seventeenth century, 75, 76. 



■^AN MAYNEN, 384. 

Van Oosterzee, his work in reply to 
Kenan's UJe of Jesus, 376. Quotation 
from it, 377. Professor in Utrecht, 
376. His works, 376, 377, 381, 382. 

Vatke, 315. 

Vaughan, testimony of, concerning 
Schleiermacher's IHscourses, 225, 226. 
Opinion on Carlyle, 477. 

Venerable Compagnie of Geneva, pro- 
hibited ministerial candidates from 
preaching on prominent evangelical 
doctrines, 427. 

Vinet, his works, and system of the- 
ology, 429. 



Virchow, 322, 

Voltaire, relations of, with Rousseau, 
119. Voltaire in England, 119. Favor- 
able reception by the English court, 
119, 120. Reception at the court of 
Frederic the Great, 120, 121. Disa- 
greement between Voltaire and Fred- 
eric, 121. Return of the former to 
France, 121. Residence in Ferney, 
121. His destitution of religious 
principles, 121. Popularity in Hol- 
land, 353. Cold treatment by Boer- 
haave, 357. Flattered by the Gene- 
van pastors, 425. 

Volter, 384. 



-^yy^ALLACE, 478. 

Walloon Church, 385. 

Ware, an Auti -Trinitarian, chosen 

professor in Harvard University, 

540. 

Waterloo, battle of, commencement of 
a new era in the religion and politics 
of Europe, 356. 

Weimar, celebrities of, 169, 170. 

Weis.s, Bernhard, 317, 318. 

Wellhausen, 315. 

Wesleyan Missions in the Channel 
Iblands and France, 388, 389. 

Wesicott, 506. 

Westminster Review, 477. 

Westphalia, Peace of, its fruits, 59. 

Wetstein, forerunner of Ernesti, 127. 

Wichern, John Henry, his Rough House 
near Hamburg, 310. 

Williams, Rowland, one of the writers 
in Essays and Reviews, 485. His opin- 
ions, 485-487. 

Wilson, H. B., discusses the question 
of the National Church in Essays and 
Jteviews, 489. His opinions, 489- 
491. 

Winchell, A., 575. 
Wise, L M., 576. 

Wislicenus, his skeptical work, 283. 

Wolfenbuttel Fragments, 149. TheiF 
origin, 149, 150. Principles con- 
tamed in them, 150, 151. Opposition 
to that work, 151. 

Wolff, his demonstrative philosophy, 

103. His good intentions, 104. His 
description of his mental progress, 

104. Division of his philosophy into 
theoretical and practical depart- 
ments, 105. His opinion of what a 
revelation should contain, 105, 106. 
He aimed to Impress his principle 
upon the masses, 106. His system 
destructive to Pietism, 107. His 
eventful life, 107, 108. Excitement 
produced by public discourse on 
Morals of Confucius, 108. His depo- 
sition and banishment, 108. Recalled 
by Frederic the Great, 108. His re- 
ception at Halle, 108, 109. The pop- 
ular reception of the Wolffian 



INDEX. 



633 



system, 109. Relation of Wolff's 
philosophy to German theology In 
eighteenth century, 110. The WolfiBan 
School, 111. 
WoUaston, his creed, and popularity of 
his works, 115. 



YEAR-BOOKS, Halle, an organ of 
Atheism, 282, 283. 
Youmans, 586. 



Young Men's Christian Union of New 
York, 553-558. 

Youth, multiplicity of publications for 
German, 189. Teachers of the young 
became Rationalists, 189, 190. 



I^AHN, Theodore, 319. 

Zurich, the present seat of Swiss Ra- 
tionalism, 432. 



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